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Decoy Ducks

Four real ducks, four decoys

You against the computer

Hide four wooden decoys among your ducks. Catch the rival’s real ducks, trick them into catching your decoys, or sneak a real duck off a far corner.

Not in the same room? Play online while you talk on a call, each on your own phone.

More info

How to play

Each player has eight ducks on a 6 × 6 pond: four real ducks 🦆 and four wooden decoys 🪵. You see which of yours are which; your rival only sees ducks. Before the game, tap your ducks to choose where the real ones start.

On your turn, move one of your ducks one square up, down, left or right. Move onto a rival’s duck to catch it; then everyone sees what it was.

Three ways to win

  • Catch all four of your rival’s real ducks.
  • Get your rival to catch all four of your decoys.
  • Move a real duck onto one of the two far corners (marked ↗), and on a later turn swim it off the pond.

If 100 moves each go by with no winner, it’s a draw.

Tips

Bluff with how you move: march a decoy boldly toward the corners and your rival may waste turns chasing it, or catch it. Be careful catching once you’ve taken three decoys: the fourth loses you the game. A rival duck next to your back corners has to be dealt with, real or not.