POND POWER!

You think you have what it takes to control the ponds? We’ll see about that! March your merry band of frogs around the map to strategically take over more ponds and take out your opponents along the way! Recruit more frog cards and hero frogs to aid you in your mission to be the ultimate victor of the ponds!

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What Is It?

✨Theme – Frogs … with knives!!!
🎯The Goal of the game is to have the most points
⚙️Variable Player Powers – Each frog faction has a unique ability they can use during their turns
⚙️Deck Building – Each player starts with a unique deck and can buy new cards throughout the game
⚙️Area Majority – Players score points on each of their turns for all the ponds they control (have the most frogs/fwooogs in)
⚙️Take That – Players can attack opponents to take their frogs off the map, and score points by attacking fwooogs

Who Is It For?

👥2 to 4 Players – Personally, I liked it best at 2. It felt the most balanced and the most interactive. But it works at 3 and 4 fine as well
👥Ages 12 & Up – I find the deck-building pretty approachable. The combat isn’t difficult either, but the strategy in who to attack, when, or where, may be better suited for a more experienced audience
👥Fans of deck-building, cute frogs, and area majority
👥Players who don’t mind confrontation in games

PROS

🟢Aesthetics – SO CUTE!!!
🟢Components – This is the deluxe edition, for context, but everything is excellent quality across the board, especially the wooden frogs
🟢Rules are well-written
🟢I liked the forced culling of hibernating, AND getting to use those cards again to pick up hero frogs
🟢Similarly, I liked the hero cards which provided permanent effects outside of your deck
🟢Good variety in cards/actions
🟢Though there is some take-that, I like that there didn’t seem to be any effects that made players discard, which is so common in deck-builders
🟢I liked scoring every turn for the area majority
🟢Combines the mechanisms of deck-building and area majority well
🟢Lots of ways to score points
🟢Good player interaction; players always invested as they watch the state of the board change each turn
🟢Frogs come off the map but are never gone, you can always redeploy them with actions later

CONS

🔴Some cards/powers definitely seemed stronger than others, or a bit unbalanced as written, including things like cost for effect or even cost for points on cards you could buy
🔴I did not love that the game just ends when the point pool runs out. I wish you finished the round and could take excess points from the box. Each player after the 1st starts with one more point that the last, but to me, that did not offset losing out on a whole turn at the end of the game, where you could be making at least 5-10 points, maybe more depending on the state of things/your current hand
🔴Not enough 1 point tokens for a 4 player game – constantly had to make change
🔴The 3 main symbols (frog, fwooog, lilypad) are all small green circles – I wish they were more distinct
🔴Wish there was a way to refresh the market
🔴The box is tight for all the components, and forget about it all fitting if you sleeve the cards

Final Thoughts

I think the game is really neat! It feels familiar if you’ve played games with these mechanisms, but also unique from other similar games too. I did think that it worked well overall, but could use some additional balancing/refining for some things like player powers, card points, and equal turns. I’ve seen an FAQ/errata online about some of this, but I know not everyone looks for things like that, so I’m trying to judge it as-is out of the box. Despite a few flaws or nitpicks, I do really like it. I think it’s a lot of fun, and absolutely adorable, so I definitely recommend it!

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Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 8/10

Designer – MingYang Lu
Artist – PondHQ
Publisher – Brother Ming Games
MSRP – $60.00 (deluxe);
$20.00 (art friends expansion)
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