Kelp

One of the hottest games at Gen Con wasn’t in the main exhibit hall. Wonderbow Games was demoing Kelp in the First Exposure Playtest Hall and both seats were taken immediately. If you weren’t the first playtesters of the day, you had to hunt them down around the convention center to get a demo. Everything shown in this preview are prototype components that may change during final production.

Kelp is an asymmetric 2 player board game designed by Carl Robinson about a shark hunting down an octopus.

The octopus is on a tile hiding in one of nine locations. Each location has a different value for how easy it is for the shark to explore or attack there. Hiding in the kelp and shadows protects the octupus, so higher rolls are needed.

The octopus plays a deck-building game, acquiring cards and tiles, using those cards to hide and swap tiles to confuse the shark.

The shark plays a bag-building dice game, attempting to find the octopus’s hiding spot and attack. Dice can be spent to purchase more dice and grant special effects.

Blue dice represent water current and help the shark swim faster, allowing them to move more spaces in one turn.

Yellow dice can be used to explore a location if the value is high enough, revealing the tile there.

Red dice are used to attack a location. If the shark attacks the octopus’s location, it’s not an easy meal for the shark. The octopus can fight, flinch, or take flight. Only if the shark plays the matching card is the attack successful, winning them the game. Otherwise, the octopus uses the advantage on their card and the game continues.

Attack dice and one die spent during purchases are added to a track. If the octopus can evade the shark until 7 dice are sent to the track, they win.

The more challenging win condition for the octopus is to acquire and eat 4 different food tiles. I made the mistake of attempting this strategy in my first play and it did not go well. Hopefully when Kelp is released I can do better next time.

To follow along with Kelp’s development and be notified of it’s launch date, visit the Wonderbow Games website and join their newsletter.