Game is like minesweeper - the 1 player game that comes with most windows PC... but for 2 players.

10 frogs are put on the board randomly at the start - 5 for 1 player, 5 for another player.

LOSE POINTS: If you shot a frog, or guess wrong - you lose points.

GAIN POINTS: If you guess correctly, and find all opponent frogs first.

Play:

You shot a space on the board, which will then show a number between 0-8. That number tells you how many frogs are in the 8 spaces surronding the shot.

So if you get a 1, that means in one of those 8 surronding spaces is a frog. NOTE: It will also show your frogs, so be careful not to give too much information to your opponenet.

Once you think you know what space a frog is on, you can guess that space.

sounds like fun! but then again, I hear a famous person created the game...........

i really love minesweeper im going to play this game alot. ironically i have been playing a lot of Sweeper lately so im in practice at the moment. i have broken 200 seconds for the big version. and beaten the medium in under a minute. and the small in 6 seconds.

When someone creates a tournament with frog finder and keeps the default "the same position with all opponents" for random start position......will all games in the tournament have the same frog placement? Hopefully not....but just wanted to double check.

SueQ: No. All Frog Finder tournamets are created with different positions, no matter what option you use.

Fencer: Great...thanks.

Unluckiest game so far? Frog Finder (furbster vs. Pason69)

Would it be possible to mark fields that you have guessed and didn't reveal a frog? Perhaps with a cross, a question mark or a different colour.

AbigailII: Why?

Fencer: Because the field contains information (there's no froggy on that square). And I have made the mistake of guessing the same field twice which just wastes a turn. Sure, one could scan the entire list of turns, but that's awkward.

AbigailII: Just twice. In one game I don't know where my mind was, but I guessed the exact same spot 3 times in a row! Ugh! Talk about not paying attention!

BIG BAD WOLF: In the game I was refering to, I almost did it three times in row as well. Only at the last moment, my mouse hovering above the submit button I notices the move list.

A 59 point difference: 44 vs -15

I just got a little annoyed how my frogs were like all lumped together in the middle of the board. So I thought about a little variation to the setup process: In the beginning of a game, half of the squares could be randomly chosen for one player, and the other half for the other player, and then both players can setup their frogs in their squares. That would add a little extra strategy part to the game and avoid that you get a rather ugly starting position that makes it very easy for your opponent to find all your frogs.

.. just an idea,
dresali.

dresali: but then you would know which squares your opponents frogs might be at.

An easier variant is just have 2 different boards (like Battleboats) where you can set up your own frogs.

Maybe to even add to that different types of frogs - like a "king" frog - fake "lilly pads" to help throw your opponent off, etc...

BIG BAD WOLF: dresali got a point there. I suggest, if two players submit the same square for a frog, they (the frogs) both die at the beginning of the game (black square).

rod03801: Imagine it with 4 players! 4 different frogs in the pond!

Of course Fencer need to introduce multi-player games first, but that is my untimate vision for the game. 2 players work nice, but 4 players would be very cool.

Ditto. Players should have an option to place their own frogs. In one game I have a frog located but can't take a shot without exposing 3 of my own.

I guess the problem is when players choose the same square during set up, but seems like a solution could be easily created.

I just came along to say how great this game is. I started playing it a few days ago and am kind of addicted :) Great job, BBW!

Gordon Shumway: Thank you. It is one of those games that because of how it is set up, it was hard to test in "real life" to make sure it was playable. Was able to test it some-what with my wife, and glad that is was as playing as we thought it would be on-line. At first it was going to be "men", but when Fencer started to make it - I said why not use the frogs in Froglet as the men..... and soon enough, the game became Frog Finder.

I have another game idea in my head - involves dice.... hum... maybe I should use the frogs in that one also... (that is if Fencer likes the idea and does the game - but I need to test the playability of it first - the idea is still stuck in my head right now.)

I love this game too! It has taken me quite aa while to figure it out though!

Imagine a Frog pond! Everyone has 10 frogs on a Go board then start brawling with 16 players alike. If you lose all your frogs.. Game over!

The first player on frog finder has a massive disadvantage if he hits a frog, there is a 10 points difference in the score which is impossible to make up... maybe the first person to go should have a free shot, if he hits a frog the board is reset ........ just a thought

WellyWales: I have thought about that also. But also on the flip side, the first player has the advantage of the first turn - that is player 1 could win the game in 5 turns (with 5 perfect guesses), and the 2nd player would not get a last "equal" amount of turns to tie.

So to give player 1 a "free shot" - and even a chance to find an opponents frog for free would give player 1 a VERY BIG advantage.

Looking at the game stats, the game seems VERY even right now.

red 2626 (49.82 %)
blue 2633 (49.96 %)
Draws 11 (0.20 %)

I did not go through all the games, but after 5,000+ games - that is as close as even that almost any game could get!

WellyWales: As said, that might give the player going first a bit of an advantage.

Perhaps it's better to have a rule that the second player cannot play his first move adjacent to the first move of the first player.

However, I don't think the second player has that much of a disadvantage - certainly less than white has in chess. Yes, the first player has the disadvantage of having to make a blind shot - but there are only five enemy frogs. He's more likely to make a shot right next to an enemy frog, revealing a non-zero number, leaving the second player to make a blind shot.

Variant Name: Frog Finder Co-op

Difference: 9 COMPUTER frogs are put on the board randomly. (There is no player 1 / player 2 frogs)

So each player is looking for the same frogs. So when you find an area that a frog is in, you can either (1) take a wild guess, (2) try to reveal more info - which will help your opponent or (3) go shoot somewhere else and see if your opponent will do either 1 or 2.

This game will encourage more guessing since you will not want to shot until you know 100% sure where the frog is since your opponent will then have a chance to guess where the frog is and get the points.

So what do people think? Similar setup to Frog Finder, but totally different strategy to play it!

coan.net: Yes, perfect! I'ld like to play that, but aren't 9 froggies just few? Should be 11 or 13.

joshi tm: I say 9 because I know most people don't like longer games - for example, the game Froglet - the game was fun for myself & others at first for awhile, but then when games took so long and seem to drag out, at least for myself - those games are less fun. (so a smaller board version of Froglet is still a suggestion I make)

But anyway, back to Frog Finder Co-op. I say 9 to keep it small - but possible have a big variant at a later day with something like 15 or even up to 21 could be a fun variant. But from my years of playing games, smaller & shorter games seem to be more popular in the long run.

At least that is my reasoning for picking 9 as the number of frogs to find (since it is close to the current 10, and with 9 will hopefully help make sure there are less ties then if there were 10 frogs on the board)

coan.net: Even with just 9 froggies, this game should still be fun.

Looking to see if we can get close to 20 into this tournament:

The "South of Canada" Frog Finder for 20 players!

Looking for some extra games - JOIN NOW!

I find this game very refreshing and I hope you'll invent other type similar to this, or something with the use of dice.

SKA: Thanks. I'm just so happy to see this game already in the top 10 of active games on this site (Since January 2007) - and almost 10,000 games complete! (currently 9590 complete)

Not only that, when working on the game - I played around with the points of what is won/lose for awhile - and after almost 10,000 games - I can see the game is VERY well balanced.

Red: 49.98% win rate
Blue: 49.85% win rate

When I think up new games, I've been posting them on my website: http://coan.net

I think the co-op version of this game (as mentioned below) would be a great variant - where both players go after the same frogs - so you don't want to give away too much information to your opponent - and will make for more guessing and more chance taking while playing.

Anyway, I'm happy to hear people who like it.

dresdali, coan.net: The difficulty with a batleboats-style setup is that the frogs live on the same board and may not share a square. What should happen if both players choose the same square? Disallowing the second player's placement would give away the other's frog.

One way round this would be for each player to place, say, ten frogs and then the system would choose five of them randomly. The ones not chosen may or may not have had a clash but there's nothing to say. The disadvantage is that the random choice removes part of the player's choice, in the case where they wanted to put their frogs in a particular configuration.

Another, and easier, option is for a player simply to be able to regenerate the random placement until they're happy with it.

playBunny: a comment on your last statement: in theory a person could also keep regenerating the random placement until they knew where their opponents pieces were too...

playBunny: I know something better: If a frog is placed above another frog, both die and the square is colored black. No one gets points. That should be fair.

Another idea would be to randomly rotate and flip the board before starting the game. There are (I think) 8 possible changes, so it's very likely that at least one of them would give you an arrangement where no frogs are on top of each other. There's a little bit of information available from the options that weren't picked, but since it's random and rotations always happen, you won't know which ones were rejected because of your opponents frogs and which ones were because of the random factor. If none of the configurations work, just make both players replace all the frogs.

troydaniels: that sounds like a great idea

I've been thinking for awhile about if it would be a good or bad thing to set up your own frogs. (ignoring the fact that there has to be a check in place to make sure frogs aren't setup on same spot)

After thinking about it for awhile, I don't think it would be good for the game.

Why do I think that? Well if I could setup my own frogs, I would probable mostly set them up close to each other - that is for example, put 4 frogs in one of the corners - making it impossible to even see the 4th frog hidden in the corner - leaving someone to either guess blindly - or wait until he checks all other squares on the board.

It could also become more predictable. For example, if I know another player always sets up their battleboat boards - I can learn things like how they normally setup boards. Do they never have any touching each other. Do they never have any touching the side. Do they ... etc.. etc... So if a person always set's up their own frogs, it would also become predictable.

So even though occasionally the random computer will set up my frogs in a "bad" way, after thinking about it - I think it is still best to have the computer randomly place the frogs rather then try to let the users do it themselves.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you seen a setup which would put 4 frogs touching 1 square? (that is to possible see a "4" on a square)? (or a 5 for that matter, even though that would be VERY rare.)

Maybe the first move by each opponent in frogs should be hidden, this way the second person does not have the advantage of shooting next to the first persons move .....

WellyWales: Actually Frog Finder is the most balanced game on the site!

After over 11,000 games:

red 5938 (50.0 %)
blue 5921 (49.85 %)

To have a 17 game win/lose difference after so many games - WOW.

coan.net: I personally have never seen a "4". The highest # I have seen is a "3"

I agree that the random set up is much better.

coan.net: I know, but don't you just hate it when you hit one on the first move. you feel like throwing the towel in

coan.net: I have already twice (!) seen a 4. But those were tree of my opponent + 2 of mine.

WellyWales: yes, I hate it !!!
But, I won two of three (or four, not sure) games in which this happened ... it IS possible to win it

Here is a game which has 4 of my opponents frogs in an area which I got a "4" box:

Frog Finder (kleineme vs. coan.net)

(and even though I found those early and thought I had a good chance of winning, I still lost.)

I have another interesting game, but it is still ongoing so I will post about that after it is complete.

Here is the other interesting game, now that it is complete:

Frog Finder (grillyx vs. coan.net)

B2 is actually a 5 box! (If I had an extra move before losing, I would have taken it to show the "5", but had to guess quickly before losing)

5 box - 4 of my own, and 1 of my opponents hidden in there - making it really hard to find without giving up my own!

Now to find a "6 box"

I still would appreciate if Coan submits the Co-Op variant of Frog Finder to Fencer...

:)

I was playing a few games recently, and I noticed someone who is each of our games would make a guess the very first move, then after losing 3 points for bad guess - would take their first shot there.

At first I thought maybe they did not know what they were doing - then after thinking about it (and noticing they have a higher rating then me so they must be doing something right), I started to think if this was a good strategy.

Of course if you have very first shot and shot a frog, all of a sudden you are 10 points behind (since you lose 5, and your opponent gains 5) - this way, they are only down 3 points to start.

Taking a look at about 25 of my past games, the closest score I could find was 5 points - with a few at 8 points, and most more then 10 points separate the 2 sides.

So obviously 3 points lose at the start would not do much damage - but I was wondering what others thought? The risk of hitting a frog on the first shot is slim: 5/139th chance. So what do others think of this strategy?