Kaeru
| Kaeru | ||
|---|---|---|
| Designed by Julien Griffon | ||
 | ||
| Jumping from waterlily to waterlily, your frogs try to eat the prey they like the most | ||
| Players: | 2 | |
| Length: | Medium | |
| Complexity: | Easy | |
| Trios per color: | 1 | |
| Number of colors: | 2 | |
| - - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - - | ||
| 1 Aquarius deck | ||
| Setup time: | 2 minutes | |
| Playing time: | 15 minutes - 20 minutes | |
| Strategy depth: | Low | |
| Random chance: | Medium | |
| Game mechanics: | piece movement, collection | |
| Theme: | Frogs’ meal | |
| BGG Link: | Kaeru | |
| Status: Complete (v1.0), Year released: 2010 | ||
Goal[edit | edit source]
Have your frogs eat as many prey they like as possible, while preventing your opponent to do the same.
Setup[edit | edit source]
Take all non-element cards (Goals, Zap a card, Shuffle hands, etc.) out of the Aquarius deck. Shuffle the element cards and distribute them in five equal stacks, face down, in a circle between both players. These are the waterlilies with the prey that the frogs will find when landing on them.
Shuffle the goal cards and give one to each player. Then, take one more and place it face up in the center of the waterlily circle. Both remaining goal cards are discarded and won't be used during this game. All goal cards in play should be visible to both players.
Each player takes a tree of a different color. These are the players’ frogs.
Both players place their frogs between the same two randomly chosen waterlilies.
The player who last saw a frog goes first.
Play[edit | edit source]
On their turn, each player moves one of their frogs on the waterlilies. One player’s frogs always jump clockwise, the other’s counterclockwise. The pyramids should be oriented so that they point towards their direction of movement.
The number of waterlilies a frog jumps in one turn is equal to its number of pips (movement points).
When landing on an unoccupied waterlily, a frog eats the prey it finds there. To do so, the player takes the topmost card in the stack and flips the next card so that its face becomes visible.
Prey[edit | edit source]
The elements each represent one type of prey the frogs eat:
- Air: insects
- Earth: worm
- Ether: slugs
- Fire: spider
- Water: small fish
Frogs pile[edit | edit source]
When a frog lands on an occupied waterlily, it stands on top of the frog(s) already there, whatever their color (the pyramids should be put upright for this). It doesn’t get to eat the prey (afraid by the first occupant, it's not coming near the waterlily yet), but it hinders the movement of the frog(s) under it.
A frog covered by another frog can climb its way over it at the cost of one movement point. If it reaches the top of the pile, and still has movement points left, it can continue jumping to another waterlily according to these remaining points.
When a frog leaves a pile, it is oriented back in its direction of movement, as well as any single frog they may have left on the waterlily where they previously formed a pile.
In case a small frog climbs over the other player's small frog, the latter can't climb back on top.
Game end[edit | edit source]
The game ends when no more prey is coming to one waterlily (one stack of cards gets depleted).
The players then count their points as follows:
Favorite prey:
- Big prey (full panel) = 4 points,
- Medium-sized prey (half panel) = 3 points,
- Small prey (quarter panel) = 2 points.
Commonly liked prey:
- Big prey (full panel) = 3 points,
- Medium-sized prey (half panel) = 2 points,
- Small prey (quarter panel) = 1 point.
A card containing both types of prey only counts for the favorite prey.
The player with most points wins the game.
Bon appétit!
Variants[edit | edit source]
Frightened prey[edit | edit source]
Instead of flipping the new top card just after taking the former one, flip it when the last frog on the waterlily leaves it. This variant makes for a more thematically accurate game, since prey will obviously not get near a waterlily occupied by a frog, but it adds a layer of randomness since the players can't plan their moves according to the prey on the waterlilies.
Unknown tastes[edit | edit source]
Instead of showing their goal to each other, the players keep them hidden. This variant just adds a small deduction part to the game.
Acknowledgements[edit | edit source]
Thanks to Doug Orleans and Mike Yarrum for their useful comments on my first design. Thanks to my dear Fumie for playtesting this game and many other not quite as playable as this one.
External Links[edit | edit source]
- Kaeru has its own page at BoardGameGeek