Game: Army of Frogs

Thread: Re: Two 2-player variants!

davedanger — 2008-08-20T04:19:09+00:00

Not a Hive clone- You can play with more than 4 players here.
Don't know the top but I plan to try 5 or 6....

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Meat — 2008-08-09T02:30:05+00:00

Box Front

Thread: Re: Two 2-player variants!

topstefan — 2008-08-05T14:22:04+00:00

Your first suggestion was actually the first thing that I thought of when reading the review of this game...
I'm actually surprised this isn't in the official rules...

Could kick up the gameplay a couple of notches...
Otherwise the game just seems as Hive with only grasshoppers
Have you played yet??? Any remarks about gameplay??? Is my comparison true??

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

volnon — 2008-08-04T02:19:44+00:00

I've orderd my copy- along with the Hive Mosquito. Can't wait to get the box next week!
As for the Frog deadlock, I am not worried about that. If I get that good at the game I am playing it too much, and it's time to move on to another game!

Yeeee-ha!

Thanks for the excellent review, Russ.

Thread: Two 2-player variants!

qswanger — 2008-07-30T02:11:33+00:00

I just got this game today and I'm dying to try it out with my usual gaming buddy in a couple of days. After reading the rules and some of the threads here, I was just wondering if anyone has tried a 2-player game where each person uses 2 colors (i.e., the full complement of pieces) but otherwise with the same rules and objective -- to get one color of frogs into a connected group. It seems like this would work (much like doubling up in a lot of other 2-4 player games, e.g., Blokus) and would be a longer and possibly more complex game. What do you think?

And now that I think about it, how about a 2-player variant where 3 colors are used -- 1 designated color apiece and 1 neutral color that can be utilized by both players but that does not count for a win if all are connected. I have a feeling a few additional rules might need to be developed for this, but I'm not sure what they would be right now. Someone help me out!

Thread: Re: Available?

qswanger — 2008-07-29T16:40:32+00:00

Looks like Army of Frogs has finally arrived! I got a call just moments ago from my local games store -- All Fun and Games in Raleigh, NC (Apex actually) -- to say that they got a copy. Now I'm just debating whether or not to pay the list price. I can't wait to play it!

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theo_ms — 2008-06-29T23:42:15+00:00

my dear friend Bel plays AoF with designer John Yianni (at Essen 2007) - right before getting me a signed copy of the game!

Thread: Re: Available?

wwscrispin — 2008-06-18T02:58:21+00:00

Looks to be generally available in the US sometime in the next month. Several places now list it as available in June.

Thread: Re: Available?

2ndPlace — 2008-06-16T23:48:01+00:00

I won't be jumping to buy at these prices.

Thread: Re: Available?

GeoMan — 2008-05-19T22:20:46+00:00

matthulgan wrote:
I contacted Vendetta games to see if the game is available and the answer is "yes." But there's a catch.

How much did you think the game would cost? Through them it costs $45.62 for the game and $36.12 for shipping. Thanks but I think I'll pass.

I think that Vendetta is trying to get as much money as they can before the game becomes widely available. I bet that it will be a lot cheaper when well known online stores get to stock it.

The same happened with Hive Mosquito. Now you can buy it for 3.5€ and Vendetta used to sell it for 12€ + shipping...

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

russ — 2008-03-30T21:18:46+00:00

Friendless wrote:
If there's a frog A who is connected ONLY to a frog B and frog B is connected ONLY to frogs A and C and frog C is connected ONLY to frogs B and D then that's a string and you can't cause it to happen.
That's exactly how I explain it to people. It seems geeks understand that description better than nongeeks.

It just keeps the island more tightly packed than the Hive, where often pieces are locked in place by the One Hive rule, and so gives you more freedom to move. There still is a chance to pin frogs with the One Hive/Island rule, but not as much as in Hive.
Actually I find that frogs are often pinned down, often by a new frog being placed so that it touches only the (now pinned) frog.

n_r_a wrote:
Do you know the company that made the bakelite pieces?
No idea!

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

n_r_a — 2008-03-30T19:01:51+00:00

Do you know the company that made the bakelite pieces?

Thank you.

n_r_a

Thread: Re: Available?

vorchan — 2008-03-27T13:40:55+00:00

I contacted the USA distributor SMART ZONE / TEAM COMPONENTS, INC. and they said it should be available in the USA by May.

Thread: Re: Available?

macedwin — 2008-03-19T15:46:41+00:00

You can get it from:
http://web.mac.com/imagine_newszine

They are the official distributors for most of the major publishers and got a batch of Army of Frogs directly from Essen last year.

Its not on their site but send them a mail as they have copies:
imagine.games@mac.com

Thread: Re: Available?

wwscrispin — 2008-03-19T15:22:17+00:00

I would think with the sales of Hive that distributors would be interested in getting it. Even if they were not, I would think one or more of the online vendors would try to get a shipment to the US or UK in bulk so they could offer it.

Thread: Re: Get it now for the low low price of just $81.72!!!!!!!!!

matthulgan — 2008-03-19T13:46:07+00:00

I contacted Vendetta games to see if the game is available and the answer is "yes." But there's a catch.

How much did you think the game would cost? Through them it costs $45.62 for the game and $36.12 for shipping. Thanks but I think I'll pass.

I'll paste the email I received below in case anybody else is psyched to spend this much for the game.

I am from Vendetta Games and I handle the orders for all Vendetta Games including Army of Frogs. I got your e-mail adress from Bram Voncken. The costs for Army of Frogs are €29,00 and sending it to the USA costs €22,95 (and will take about 2 to 3 days) so the total price will be €51,95.
You can pay thru paypal, but no creditcards please, on the account of desire2904@yahoo.com but preferably thru bank to
the account of: Desiré Kuiper
account-number: 36 07 83 023
IBAN: NL86 RABO 0360 7830 23
BIC: RABONL2U
And please send your name and adress to this e-mail adress (with paypal not necessary).
I will send you your package after having received payment.
Kind regards,
Desiré Kuiper
Vendetta Games

Thread: Re: Available?

wwscrispin — 2008-03-17T20:07:08+00:00

Yes, they have a website but Hive is available everywhere. A Boardgameprices search finds Army of Frogs available is no places in the US or UK.

Thread: Re: Available?

vendettaspel — 2008-03-17T19:02:44+00:00

Website publisher: www.vendettaspel.nl
or: http://www.vendettaspel.nl/armyoffrogsen.htm
regards

Thread: Re: Available?

wwscrispin — 2008-03-10T17:29:55+00:00

I have been interested in this as well. I do not understand if this has not really gone into full production or if there are distribution issues. It seems strange, after the success of Hive, that there is zero visibility on this game.

Thread: Re: Available?

GeoMan — 2008-03-07T23:21:04+00:00

Rudepooch wrote:

Is this available anywhere? I wanna buy it! Been searching for days!

I haven't seen it anywhere online. And the designer seems to have vanished... no news, no posts here, no info on the official site...

I wonder how he will promote this game.

Thread: Re: Available?

Yokiboy — 2008-03-04T23:52:03+00:00

I haven't found it either, but would like to.

Thread: Available?

Rudepooch — 2008-03-04T04:47:06+00:00

Is this available anywhere? I wanna buy it! Been searching for days!

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

matthulgan — 2008-01-25T16:44:30+00:00

I haven't been able to find this for sale anwhere at all. I know it's not available in the US yet but are there any leads of where I could order it from in Europe?

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Odoren — 2008-01-03T20:16:37+00:00

Army of Frogs

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

Friendless — 2007-11-27T05:46:24+00:00

I thought the string rule was unclear until I looked at the diagram and realised that it was talking about the connections between the frogs. It is kinda hard to write down...

If there's a frog A who is connected ONLY to a frog B and frog B is connected ONLY to frogs A and C and frog C is connected ONLY to frogs B and D then that's a string and you can't cause it to happen. It just keeps the island more tightly packed than the Hive, where often pieces are locked in place by the One Hive rule, and so gives you more freedom to move. There still is a chance to pin frogs with the One Hive/Island rule, but not as much as in Hive.

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

kduke — 2007-11-19T21:45:58+00:00

Maybe Hannibal's boat, now that it's finally unloaded, will go back for Frogs and Mossies.

Thread: Re: Combining Army of Frogs with Hive

drunkenKOALA — 2007-11-15T10:54:21+00:00

Well so does the spider

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

arsenic — 2007-11-09T15:32:26+00:00

Before this site, I've been offered both Arm and Mosquito for... I think it was 49 euros. I contacted the US distributor after contacting the designer and they simply said it's not available in the US yet.

I guess there's nothing to do but wait! The price to play is just a little too steep for me to import the game. I hope all you Europeans don't have to pay too much for shipping to get a hold of it!

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

userhive — 2007-11-09T14:48:41+00:00

Try on http://www.spellenenzo.nl

The Mosquito of Hive is there too.

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

Wolfeman — 2007-11-05T20:58:40+00:00

Great review, Russ, thanks!

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KSensei — 2007-10-30T05:09:02+00:00

One frog of each color.

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KSensei — 2007-10-30T05:08:23+00:00

The four player stones to mark who is what color.

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KSensei — 2007-10-30T05:07:48+00:00

Mid 3-player game.

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KSensei — 2007-10-30T05:07:22+00:00

It's not easy being green.

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

theo_ms — 2007-10-29T21:05:24+00:00

nice review, thx russ! i plan to get this and i was very curious about the detailed gameplay and other issues covered by you.

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

gtatters — 2007-10-29T13:11:42+00:00

the deadlock issue sounds like what you can get with Abalone

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

Sexy Amy — 2007-10-28T23:15:08+00:00

Thanks for the detailed review of this game, one I am considering for purchase. Seems fun. Still, the deadlock problem does give one pause.

Thread: Re: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

Yokiboy — 2007-10-28T22:24:42+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth review. I am quite excited to try Army of Frogs, even though it seems a much lighter game than Hive.

Thread: a fun appealing game, with a few reservations

russ — 2007-10-28T16:06:41+00:00

Army of Frogs is the successor to Hive. Both involve placing and moving high-quality Bakelite hex tiles in a connected group. But there are significant differences, so I would not assume that a like or dislike of one game would predict a like or dislike of the other.

It is normally relatively quick to play in our experience: 2 player games normally last less than 10 minutes for us, and multiplayer less than 20 or 30 minutes, although a deadlock-ish situation can occasionally arise.

The rules are short and simple and easy to understand (although they have some typos and in at least one place, one must use some common sense to understand the intent.)

MORE CLACKY BAKELITE GOODNESS:
The frog pieces are very pleasing Bakelite in 4 colors (red, green, blue, white) with little speckles like some of the Gipf games. (John Yianni mentioned to us at Essen that the same company made them.) The frogs have raised backs that are easy to grasp and pick up and move, which is nice, since you'll be doing that a lot. Each player has 10 identical frogs.

Each player also has a disk in their color, to help everyone remember who is who - that is convenient because it's easy to brainfart and think someone is the color of frogs sitting in front of them.

The game comes with a cloth bag with a drawstring - not as sturdy for carrying as the vinyl zippered Hive pouch, but perhaps more comfortable for drawing random tiles.

RANDOMNESS:
Yes, unlike Hive, Army of Frogs has some randomness. Each player starts with 2 randomly drawn frogs, and plays one and draws a new one each turn. Once the sack is empty, the game no longer has randomness and becomes pure strategy.

WIN BY UNITING YOUR FROGS:
The goal is quite simple and clear: to get all your frogs that are in play connected into a single group, and there must be at least 7 of your 10 frogs in play. (Otherwise of course the first frog placed would trivially be a win for that player.)

BASIC PLAY:
On your turn you must jump one of your frogs if possible, then place a new frog if possible.

Jumping is done like a grasshopper in Hive, i.e. the frog moves in a line over one or more adjacent frogs and lands in the first empty space. It may continue jumping that way, changing direction, as long as you like. In some complex board situations it is an enjoyable mini-puzzle to figure out a path to get a frog into a desired place.

Like Hive, a move cannot disconnect the mass of frogs in play.

(There is also a more technical and slightly unclearly explained restriction to prevent "strings", which are a string of 3 frogs. Here, like Hive, I would say the rules could have been written more formally and carefully to prevent confusion, but the intent seems to be: if there are 4 frogs A, B, C, D such that A only touches B, B only touches A and C, C only touches B and D, then that is called a "string" and is not permitted.)

Then you place a new frog into the connected mass of frogs. You have 2 randomly drawn frogs in front of you. You can play another player's frog anywhere, and your own color anywhere that does not touch another of your frogs.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?
Some people, including me, were worried about the randomness. In practice, I must admit it doesn't seem to hurt the game normally, although it's perhaps philosophically disturbing for a strategy purist. In practice, the game usually seems to continue until all frogs are drawn, at which point the randomness goes away.

However it is possible for someone to get screwed, and have very few of their frogs in play while the other players already have 7 down, mostly united.

We experimented a few times with 2-player pure strategy (where you can place whichever color you like); John Yianni mentioned not having explored that much, so we were curious, and it seemed to work fine. It starts off feeling like it favors one player, but assuming competent play both players end up seeming in reasonable positions. We have not yet tried pure strategy multiplayer.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS:
Strategically, you want to split other players' frogs into 2 or more groups while uniting yours. Sometimes these goals work together, but sometimes you must make a choice to split off one of your frogs to jump it into a place to disable an opponent from uniting theirs.

It is useful having a long line of your frogs, since you can more effectively divide other players' groups, but it is risky because if both ends are pinned down, then you may have to jump a frog in the middle of the line, thus splitting yourself.

For a beginner, identifying all the destinations you can reach by jumping with a given frog is a mini-puzzle that can be nontrivial. With experience, this becomes a quicker more trivial task.

I see 3 phases to the game:
1. You want to get your own tiles out if possible, since you must have at least 7 in play to win, and the more tiles you have out, the more options you have. Here you are dependent on the luck of the draw. The first few rounds seem relatively meaningless, and in some sense can be viewed as an elaborate process to get all the frogs into play and quasi-randomly distributed. John Yianni mentioned that he rarely sees a player win with only 7 frogs, before all 10 of their frogs are out, and that jibes with our experience.
2. When you have 7 out, or can see that (due to another player having 2 of yours) you are guaranteed to have 7 soon, then you are often more likely to place other players' tiles, to give you a chance to win sooner with only 7 or so tiles, and to make more disconnected groups of other players.
3. When the bag becomes empty, there is no longer randomness and a sort of endgame is entered in which you can be more calculational and planning.

2-PLAYER VS MULTI-PLAYER:
2-player leads to a more pure strategy experience, as in most games. With more than 2, issues of diplomacy arise, and often several players must cooperate to prevent another from winning on their next turn, e.g. by 2 players both jumping frogs into the space between 2 groups of the other player so that they can't join their 2 groups. However, the ability to smack down a leader in some situations seems to contribute to a possible deadlock problem. On the other hand, if the luck of the draw favors 1 player, then multiplayer is better since we had 1 2-player game where one player simply didn't get any frogs out before the other had 5 frogs out, which gave a really tough disadvantage and gave an easy win to the favored player. Normally that wouldn't happen, but it's not an incredibly improbable event that one player would keep drawing only the other player's color in the beginning.

COMPARISON WITH HIVE:
Many Hive owners are probably interested in Army of Frogs, so I'll compare the 2:

Hive is strictly 2-player with no chance. Army of Frogs is for 2 to 4, with random drawing.

Hive has 5 kinds of pieces, each with different movement methods. Army of Frogs has just one kind of piece.

Both games consist of a growing dynamic group of hex tiles, with a rule that the group must stay connected. Army of Frogs has an additional rule to disallow long dangling "strings" of tiles.

Hive permits ties (if both queens are surrounded simultaneously, achieving both players' victory conditions simultaneously). Army of Frogs does not permit such ties, but a similar problem of deadlock may be an issue. (Such deadlocks can happen in Hive in theory, but seem much rarer.)

Army of Frogs is somewhat physically larger than Hive (larger bag, more tiles, slightly larger tiles), so a little less portable, but still quite compact compared to a typical boxed game.

The opening of Hive seems to have far more crucial decisions to make, whereas the opening of Army of Frogs feels more like a preliminary to get some frogs out on the table and then the "real" play begins.

A possibly useful analogy: Hive is to Army of Frogs as Trax is to Tantrix. (Trax is 2-player pure strategy; Tantrix is for 2-4, with random draw of tiles.) (On the other hand, Trax and Army of Frogs have a smaller number of virtually identical pieces, while Hive and Tantrix have diverse pieces...)

CONCERNS ABOUT DEADLOCK:
It often feels like the game will never terminate due to several players having united all but one of their frogs, and their last is locked by an outside frog touching only it, thus preventing them moving their last frog to join the others. The people with those outside locking frogs have no incentive to move them, and the people who are almost winning have no incentive to split their other united frogs, so sometimes there seems to be a degenerate situation where people keep moving seemingly meaningless frogs from one place to another in the group.

In many games, we found that in reality this fear of deadlock was an illusion, and the equilibrium was broken because eventually the mandatory jump rule made someone have to split their united group and then the logjam was broken.

But in at least one game things kept shifting around with no clear sign of any progress, until finally one player made an intentionally lame move that let another player win.

It's unclear to me how often this will be a problem. Almost every game we played didn't end up in such a deadlock, but the fact that it happened once, and the fact that it seems clear that it can happen with conservative play, makes me worry a little.

On the other hand, sometimes one player gets an early lead and wins decisively quickly. So the game seems to have wide variation in whether a player gets a quick win, or all players get equally powerful positions and block each other from winning, or something in the middle (which is of course the most enjoyable situation).

Based on having played 15 times, with roughly equal numbers of 2, 3, and 4 players, I am starting to think that this deadlock problem is more serious when players are more experienced and avoid mistakes that give a win earlier, and more serious also in multiplayer games, where 1 player will be less inclined to make a "risky" move to hurt another player since that will be helping the remaining players. (I.e. "Why should I hurt myself to stop Bob? Why don't you stop Bob?" It reminded me a little bit about the play of failure cards in Kill Doctor Lucky in that sense. But Kill Dr. Lucky will not deadlock since everyone refusing to budge will let the killer win, while everyone refusing to budge in Army of Frogs can apparently lead to a deadlock.)

Lest this section give too negative an impression, I should emphasize that although several games seemed to be veering toward deadlock, only 1 seemed to truly achieve deadlock. The others ended up eventually leaving deadlock due to mandatory jumping, which eventually forced some player to split his mostly united frogs. I would be very curious to hear other players' experiences and thoughts about this deadlock issue.

CONCLUSION:
At this time, I would say that Army of Frogs is interesting and fun, but I'm not sure it will prove to have the depth and lasting power of Hive (although I wouldn't bet my head on it). Even if that fear proves true, and Army of Frogs ends up being more of a filler game than a serious game, we are happy to have acquired it since we've been having fun with it, and its simplicity of rules compared to Hive (only one kind of piece to explain!) makes it good to teach and play with newbies and kids and non-gamers (which we've already done). And like Hive, its pieces are very nice quality and appealing to play with.

Thread: Re: how does this play?

russ — 2007-10-27T15:46:43+00:00

For what it is worth, we played a few times 2-player with a pure strategy variant, in which you could place whatever new piece you wanted instead of having 2 randomly drawn pieces. It seemed to work, but having only played a few times that way, I hesitate to say that I KNOW that it works. And we've not tried multiplayer that way yet.

Thread: Re: how does this play?

quozl — 2007-10-27T03:44:08+00:00

Are the rules online somewhere?

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

arsenic — 2007-10-25T17:14:37+00:00

Hi William - I've sent an email off to them asking about when we can buy it. I'll let ou know if I hear anything!

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bluestarfish — 2007-10-25T12:36:22+00:00

Army of Frogs in play at Essen2007

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

wwscrispin — 2007-10-24T02:46:29+00:00

Will this be widely available?

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Ceryon — 2007-10-22T19:42:45+00:00

Cover

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Ceryon — 2007-10-22T19:41:15+00:00

Game in play

Thread: Re: how does this play?

drunkenKOALA — 2007-10-20T06:26:56+00:00

I was reading the rules, not sure if I understood it perfectly but some concerns I had were:

like you said the random draw. I think I'd much prefer an open information game.

players sharing pieces (that they can play, not own). In my experience games where players share pieces are more tactical, puzzle-like and opaque. But the pieces weren't owned by specific players as in army of frogs, so maybe it won't be as bad?

Thread: Re: how does this play?

russ — 2007-10-19T20:53:53+00:00

I would say Hive is to Army of Frogs as Trax is to Tantrix, perhaps. Played it twice, bought it, played it 3 more times, like it. I was worried it might be too simple and limited, but so far it seems cool and has had some aha insights. I was also worried it would bog down into a long draw where neither player lets the other win, but so far it seems that the requirement that you must move on your turn forces the game state to continually shift enough that eventually someone will win. (Unlike Hive where draws are all too frequent from mutual queen surrounding.)

The bakelite frogs are cool. The sack is cloth with drawstring, so less useful for carrying than the sturdy vinyl zipper bag, alas, but feels nicer when drawing tiles out.

I was also worried the randomness of the draw would be annoying, but it interestingly seems to make little difference, pleasingly.

Thread: how does this play?

drunkenKOALA — 2007-10-19T14:05:13+00:00

Chess is to Checkers as Hive is to....Army of Frogs? No? Anyone at Essen try this out? How does it play? I am quite interested.

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

arsenic — 2007-09-25T16:45:52+00:00

Yeah... I notied that too. There wasn't an add around that I saw when I wrote the message though. Glad to see that it's comming though!

Thread: Re: Anticipated Availability?

topstefan — 2007-09-25T16:08:28+00:00

I reckon it will be available in Essen 2007. Well, that's what their ad on BGG says anyway

Thread: Anticipated Availability?

arsenic — 2007-09-05T11:10:03+00:00

Does anyone know if there was an anticipated release date yet? Looks like it'd be fun!