coan.net: Frog Legs is missing something - it ends up being a very long drawn out game.
IMO, this comes from the fact that it doesn't pay to reveal information. And that stems from the fact that after you reveal information, your opponent will be the first one to be able to use it. So, if you make a move that reveals information from which the location of a frog can be deduced, your opponent will score, not you.
That is, IMO, the essential flaw in the game. None of the suggestions that assign different number of points is going to resolve it. Neither is the auto revealing of squares neighbouring a 0 - that will make the game shorter, but it still doesn't pay to reveal information.
I can think of one rule change which may fix that: after shooting, you have the option of guessing as well. So ones turn is one of:
Shoot
Shoot, then guess
Guess
Thus, if your shot reveals information that locates the position of a frog, you're the first one that can use this information.
AbigailII: "Neither is the auto revealing of squares neighbouring a 0 - that will make the game shorter, but it still doesn't pay to reveal information."
But it does work - since you basically *HAVE* to reveal information on every move, since you are no longer able to make "dummy" shots - every shot will at least say something new about at least 1 square. They you have to start to look at your shots - and of course you want to shot somewhere that will reveal as much information about as many squares as possible - since if you just reveal it about 1 square... well then you could be giving your opponent too much information.
Have you tried it yet - I think it works very well.