Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Maximum Booping Chaos Ahead
The basic idea of boop Shuffle is the same as the original boop. You’re placing Kittens out on the board in hopes of getting three of your color in a row so that you can graduate them into the Cats necessary to win the game. However, as Cats and Kittens are being played onto the table, they boop the cards next to them into adjoining spaces, or possibly off the table altogether. In order to win, you must get three Cats of your color in a row, or have all eight of your Cats out on the board. These win conditions are the same for both versions. That’s where the similarities end.
boop Shuffle is a card game, with cards taking the place of the cat meeples in the original. Each turn you will draw a card from the deck and place it into the 6×6 grid on the table. The placed card will boop any adjacent cards away from itself according to the rule of the placed card. If you run out of cards, reshuffle the discards and begin drawing again.
This isn’t simply a card game with the exact mechanisms of the original game, however. While you have Kittens and Cats of your own color, the card deck contains the Kitten and Cat cards of both players and you have to play whatever you draw. This means that when you draw a card, you may be placing your own color card or that of your opponent.
This version also adds specialty cards that weren’t found in the original game. boop only had Cats and Kittens in each player color. Now you also have Wild Kittens/Cats, Super Kitties/Cats, Scaredy Kittens, and a Blankie.
The Wilds can be either color Kitten/Cat when placed. The Super and Scaredy cards introduce new movement rules for the Kittens and Cats so that when they boop, it’s not as simple as moving away one space, as was the case in the original game. Now you may have felines booping two spaces away, jumping over other felines, or causing chain reaction boops. The Blankie can temporarily remove a card from play by putting the feline underneath it into catnap mode.
In the original boop you only had to deal with your own Kittens and Cats, making it a much more controlled experience which rewarded strategy. That control is gone in boop Shuffle. boop Shuffle is just about the perfect representation of the phrase “herding cats.” Not only do the specialty cards introduce more frantic and unpredictable booping, having to place cards of your opponent’s color introduces new wrinkles and ways that you can mess with each other. The ability to adjust on the fly is key here, and even then you’re going to need a few lucky breaks (or for your opponent to make a critical mistake) to win.
If that isn’t crazy enough for you, there are advanced rules that remove the fixed grid of cards and allow you to place cards within a 6×6 space that can be anywhere. You’re creating a flexible grid that floats and grows as players play cards. Now you’re herding cats all over your dining room table!
All this to say, it’s cat chaos out there and herding Kittens and Cats into rows has never been more difficult (and slightly frustrating, at times).
No Bed For These Kitties
In boop Shuffle the playing surface isn’t the nice quilted bed from the original. Here you’re given two neoprene strips with which to make a 6×6 grid. You only get two strips, so you have to imagine the other two sides of the grid. While this is useful for making the game very portable, it’s also slightly annoying.
The colors on the strips aren’t very distinct (pastel pink and lavender), and it can be hard to visualize exactly where the cards are in relation to the grid. This is particularly true in low light and the further away the cards get from the strips. As you’re moving cards, it’s easy to nudge a card so that it’s straddling two spaces and you’re asking, “Was it here, or there?”
Did We Need More boop?
boop Shuffle is fun, but in a very different way from the original boop. I think of it this way: The original boop is a serious abstract game with a fluffy exterior. You play it when you want a thinky, head-to-head experience in an approachable package. boop Shuffle is the game you pull out in the tent during a rainstorm to kill some time and generate some laughs and groans.
To enjoy it, you have to embrace the chaos and be willing to make the best of whatever cards fate lets you have. You may go several turns drawing only your opponent’s cards. What are you going to do with that? Will a specialty card bail you out with some fortunate boops, or will it boop your plans into oblivion? Can you make a wild card help you, or hurt your opponent? Can you possibly protect your cats from unwanted boops? Are you better off trying to turn an unwanted card into something useful, or should you stash it out of booping range on the grid? There are things to think about here, but you have to be okay with the idea that the very next card draw can fizzle all those thoughts.
For me, I slightly prefer the original boop for my cat-herding needs. I like the nicer components, the easier to see playing surface, and the ability to better control and predict my strategy.
However, boop Shuffle does have a place as a travel game. It stashes perfectly in a suitcase and can be played on any flat surface. It’s also great for when I can’t muster the energy to care too much about who wins or loses and I just want to have some silly, cute, cat booping fun. It’s a game for light moods, and those times you want to play something without working too hard.
Whether you need both in your collection depends on what you want from your cat rodeos, and whether or not you have room for multiple cat games in your space (or heart).
Boop Shuffle details
- Designer: Scott Brady
- Artists: Curt Covert
- Publishers: Smirk & Dagger Games
- Release Date: 2026
- Player count : 2
- Age range : 10+
- Time range : 20 - 30 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Pattern Building, Race, Slide/Push, Square Grid, Take That
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.10435 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about Boop Shuffle.
