How to play
There’s no board: the pieces themselves make the pond, and it grows as you play. Each player has eleven pieces: a Duck 🦆, two Turtles 🐢, three Frogs 🐸, two Crabs 🦀 and three Ants 🐜. Surround your rival’s Duck on all six sides, with pieces of either colour, to win. If both Ducks are surrounded at once, it’s a draw.
On your turn, either place a piece from your hand or move one already in the pond.
Placing
A new piece must touch at least one of your own pieces and none of your rival’s (the first two pieces of the game just touch each other). Your Duck can’t be your first piece, and it must be down by your fourth.
Moving
You can only move once your Duck is down. The pond must always stay in one piece: you can’t move a piece whose leaving would split it in two.
- Duck: one step.
- Turtle: one step, and it can climb on top of other pieces. A piece under a Turtle can’t move, and the Turtle’s colour counts for placing next to it.
- Frog: jumps in a straight line over one or more pieces to the next gap.
- Crab: exactly three steps around the edge.
- Ant: as many steps as it likes around the edge.
Walking pieces slide along the ground: they can’t squeeze through a gap between two pieces, and must keep touching the pond as they go. If you can’t place or move anything, you pass. After 300 turns the game is a draw.
Tips
Ants are the strongest pieces: get them out early and use them to block. Pin your rival’s pieces so they can’t move without splitting the pond. A Turtle sitting on the enemy Duck stops it moving at all.