Bunny Boom

A village is being overpopulated by bunnies in Bunny Boom, a board game designed by Guillaume Boudreau (a.k.a. Guime) and published by Ruse Games. Featuring cozy artwork from Andrew Bosley (Everdell, Potions of Azerland), players will avoid rabbits around town and keep as many out of their homes as possible to win.

Bunny Boom plays with 2 to 4 players in 15 to 45 minutes. With fewer players, less spaces will be available to play cards, as indicated on the start tile.

The game plays over two phases. In the first phase, cards will be played to empty locations adjacent to the start tile or other cards.

Players then move their villager onto the card they placed, collecting bunnies from movement effects (the green icon, bottom right of card) on cards they pass over and any bunny tokens already on cards.

Once all empty locations are filled, the game moves into phase 2. Cards must now be played on top of existing cards, attempting to match the card suit locking that location from being used again.

Cards that do no match the suit can be played onto existing cards, but that player will gain bunny tokens equal to the played card’s value in addition to bunnies gained from moving onto this card.

When a card is played (in both phases), the player gets to take advantage of the play effect under the grey arrow. Most abilities are straightforward such as lose a bunny, give bunnies to other players, or skip over a location.

If a card played has a blue river symbol beside the play icon, that player must activate a river action from one of the 3 cards in the river. These will exchange cards with the deck, steal cards, or make all players swap hands. At the end of a turn, players can draw a new card from the deck or one of the face-up river cards.

One of the two best play actions in Bunny Boom, is well, Bunny Boom. This action will spawn a bunny token on all cards for players to pick up as they move around the village.

The next best action is the carrot attack. This forces another player to move to that location first (potentially clearing bunny tokens in the path) and they gain the carrot token. The carrot token is worth 4 bunnies to the player holding it at the end of the game.

For added pressure, the game includes an optional sand timer. The timer is only for the card selection part of a turn, forcing you to pick a card quickly. Players can then take their time choosing where to place their frantically chosen card.

Once all locations in the village have been locked, the game is over. Count up the bunnies on your home tile, from the carrot token, and the bunny value of the cards remaining in hand at the end of the game. Whoever has the least bunnies managed to evade them the best and wins Bunny Boom.

Many of the photos shown here feature the deluxe neoprene playmat. The retail edition of the game will include a 9-piece puzzle board with the same Andrew Bosley artwork.

Two extra modules are included and can be mixed into the basic game. The first adds a Fox that will move around the village when you play the associated card. Any villager it passes will gain a rabbit from the current player’s home tile.

The second module is the burrow variant. Whenever a villager crosses a burrow card, the player holding the burrow token will give that villager a bunny from their home tile.

For more information on Bunny Boom, follow the Gamefound campaign from Ruse Games.