Fans of boop, Scott Brady's deceptively cute cat-pushing abstract, have a new pocket-sized version to slip into a bag. boop Shuffle takes the original's board of nudging kittens and rebuilds it entirely out of cards, and it plays in about 20 minutes for two.
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See how it worksIf you have not met the original, boop is a two-player game where placing a kitten on the bed shoves every neighbouring piece one space away. Line up three kittens in a row and they graduate into cats; line up three cats and you win. It was sharp enough to take the Mensa Select award in 2023, and it hides real strategy under all the fluff.
boop Shuffle keeps that graduation goal but swaps the quilted board for cards laid out on the table. Play a card next to another and it boops the neighbours along, shifting the whole layout. The twist is that both players draw from a shared deck, so you will sometimes be placing your opponent's kitten without knowing it. Wild cards work for anyone, Super Kittens boop two spaces, and Scaredy Kittens flee when something approaches, which keeps the board lurching in unexpected directions.
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Start organising for freeReviewer Meeple Mountain called it a good time in its 13 July write-up, describing the original as a serious abstract in a fluffy coat and boop Shuffle as the looser, sillier one you pull out to kill time and generate a few laughs and groans. That is a fair trade for something this portable.
boop Shuffle is a two-player game priced at $14.99 (roughly £12), with 45 cards and a pair of neoprene play strips in the box. If your group already loves quick two-player fillers, this one travels well.
Sources: Smirk & Dagger | Meeple Mountain | ICv2 | Mensa Select
