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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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!

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.

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!

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

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!

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

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 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!

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.

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.

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).

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...

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.

A 59 point difference: 44 vs -15

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.

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!

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: Why?

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.

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

Fencer: Great...thanks.

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

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.

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.

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

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.