The pond is a good place to live. It gets crowded. There seems to never be enough room for all the frogs who live there. But, being a frog is about having fun. And, as frogs we like to jump. The frogs of the pond choose teams and everyone crowds into the pond. Let the jumping begin.-----
I had the opportunity of playing Frog Chess by Brian Grigsby at Salt Lake Gaming Convention 2018 (website). This is the third game I’ve reviewed from Binary Cocoa.
Frog Chess is a strategy game for of 2 or 3 players (I played a 2 person game) with a field of frogs. Frog Chess is a deceptive game in that we are so used to playing survival based games that when something different comes along it throws us. I fell into the trap.
Game Play
Each player has a team of frogs and they take turns placing them on a grid based board. The only limitation is no frogs can be placed in the outside edge of the board. Frogs aren’t able to survive in that outside ring for longer than jumping through it—which comes later. The setup becomes important because frogs like to jump, they want to jump, and they need to jump.
Frogs jump. And, they can jump in any direction, if they can. Frogs need something to jump over. If there isn’t another frog sitting in one of the squares next to them they have nothing to jump over. Frogs also need a place to land after they jump. Simply put, there needs to be an empty square on the other side of the frog they are jumping. This is like checkers, but they move horizontally and diagonally. There are no front or back movements, just jumping in any direction.
Every frog jumped over is removed from the board. You can jump over the other players’ frogs or one of your own. But, no matter what frog you jump over, the frog is removed from the board.
Frogs can keep jumping. Once a frog starts jumping it can keep jumping as long as it can, but it can also stop along the way. Just watch out where you stop. If a frog stops jumping in the outer ring of the board, it gets removed. A simple reminder is that at the end of every turn the outer ring has no frogs in it.
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| A two player game getting underway. |
Now you see how the game is played, let me introduce the twist. This is not a game about survival, it is about jumping. It doesn’t matter how many frogs are left on the board at the end of the game, it is about who made the last jump. The last one to make a jump wins. You can eliminate your opponent, or leave their frogs in a position where they are unable to jump.
I started the game thinking I knew what I was doing. The early moves were designed to remove a number of my opponent’s frogs with little loss on my side. I’ll admit I even started keeping track of the number of frogs we each had left on the board.
The game continued and I realized my mistake. I left a frog stranded out by itself. It’s only hope was to have a frog get closer that it could jump over. Another frog soon had no place it could land. My frogs were stranded and blocked. They were unable to jump.
Overall
Frog Chess plays up the strategy of how to move, not on the number of frogs left.
I enjoyed the twist. Even though I lost the match, I found the change of thought process refreshing. I found myself for some time afterwards coming back and watching other people play Frog Chess because the change intrigued me.
Frog Chess would work as a cabin game. It would work better in a trailer or motorhome. It could be put in a pack or suitcase because the shape of the box, but it is larger than what I usually classify as a cabin game. I saw younger players having fun with the bright colored frogs. It looked like they were having fun with the jumping without concern of the final outcome—they liked jumping the frogs.
Frog Chess is a good filler game. The game is designed to run less than 15 minutes. Even with learning the game, mine was about 15. The setup is part of the game and included in the time.
Frog Chess by Brian Grigsby is produced by Binary Cocoa (website, Facebook). It is designed for 2–3 players ages 7+, and to last 10–15 minutes.
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The frogs jump. Our team. Their team. Back and forth we jump. The crowd at the edge grows go as more frogs are jumped. I take your place on the spectators’ log when I got jumped. The competition continues. Then the jumping stops. Our team made the last jump and are croaked the winners. Those sitting next to me from the other team ribbit their congratulations and challenges for the next game.
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
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