Welcome back to the hopping, buzzing ponds of Snatch It! Here you will find suggestions from the designer Christwart Conrad for ideal & new ways to play. Loved the base game and feel ready for new challenges? These will satiate your frog belly! Hop in to see what’s buzzing!
You may only see the card on the top of every stack. You may not view the lower contents of any stack, including your own and even your own Frog Belly (how could you anyway?). Cards are stacked in a way, that you cannot see the cards below the top card.
This makes for smooth gameplay, and the memory factor adds to the fun!
As stated in the rules, each player draws cards individually from the deck. This means that no one takes the whole deck and distributes cards to their fellow players! If the Draw deck appears close to being empty, draw cards in turn order. Everyone makes sure that they do not draw too many cards.
It’s fun to avoid having one player ‘run the pond!’ We’re all insatiable frogs and can handle our own appetites!
It is in the spirit of the game that you immediately take the opponent’s pile onto which you have played a card without much hesitation or even asking. Only then does the stolen player reclaim their stack (if they can and want to).
Feel free to ignore the line on the Last Bite card and place it lower in the deck, extending the game for more nabbing fun! For froggies with refined snatching skills!
If (after becoming familiar with the game) you forget to take a card after someone reclaimed a stack you stole, you can no longer make up for it once the next player has taken an action!
Learn the lay of the lily pads and watch out for yourself!
With an increasing player count (especially at 5-6 players), there will also be an increasing amount of luck and chaos. Enjoy the throws of backwater turmoil!
We think it’s fun that the feel of the game shifts at different player counts. Learn how you like to play and find froggy pals to enjoy it with!
You shouldn’t play this kind of game in silence anyway, because part of the fun is expressing and experiencing schadenfreude and indignation. Furthermore, you can go further by verbally supporting your actions: If you snatch, call out “I’ll snatch it!” If you steal, call out “I’ll steal it!” If you reclaim a card, call out “Reclaim!” When you Swallow your bugs, say “Yum!” (or makes a corresponding happy belly noise).
Lastly, when shuffling the Bait cards to see what the Stork will devour, drum the table in anticipation of the upcoming feast!
We never said this was Chess
As the rules indicate, if the Last Bite card appears during the Snatching phase, such as after a stealing player has drawn a consolation card, the game ends after the current Snatching phase.
If the stork card appears while filling the pond (even if the pond is full and the Last Bite card simply sits atop the deck), the next round will be the last round, with the exception that there will be no Stork phase! Discard the Stork and use the cards beneath it to continue
filling the pond, if necessary
In general, it makes no difference who shuffles the face-down cards and who decides which ones are revealed, but the designer recommends that one person shuffles the deck and another player reveals the Bait card. It’s even better if you make sure that all cards have the same orientation.
Variant: For the fun of the reveal, you may choose to specify that the current starting player shufflesthe cards, and the player with the fewest (or one of them if tied) reveals the Bait card.
It’s all about giving the underdog (underfrog..?) a chance to enjoy revealing which cards of their rivals will be devoured by the Stork!
Game Variants!
4. Storks Devour: Compare the revealed Bait card with the stacks in your Patch. If the type matches any of your top cards, the player on your right decides which stack you discard (without examining your stacks). It is in the spirit of the game that they choose a high-value stack (with many cards or swarms).
4. Storks Devour: The revealed Bait card is now interpreted differently,because now the number is also of importance. The number on it (in the case of a swarm, always count the number as zero) indicates how many cards a pile of the same color may contain. Each player counts the cards of all their piles whose top card is of the revealed color. If the pile contains more cards than the face-up card indicates, it becomes the stork’s prey!
Some examples:
• If an orange 2 is revealed, any deck whose top card is orange and has more than 2 cards must be discarded.
• If a purple 5 is revealed, any deck whose top card is purple and has more than 5 cards must be discarded.
• If a blue (Swarm) is revealed, it is always counted as zero, so any deck with a top card of blue is discarded!
2. Refill your Hand: If there are still not enough cards after shuffling the discards, everyone must give away cards from their Frog bellies. To do this, everyone shuffles their secured Frog belly, and then everyone puts one card face down on a pile, until it has the necessary number of cards. Then this pile of cards is shuffled and forms a new draw pile. If, in an extreme case, someone has no saved cards at all, they are lucky as they are spared.
It is easy to record your points over several games, just note the number of points achieved by each player. By adding up the points after a previously set number of games, e.g. 3 or 4, you can determine an overall winner.
If you want to determine a final winner even in the event of a regular tie, the tied player with the most 6-card (then 5-card etc.) wins
Notes on Tactics
If you want to find out for yourself what is possible, don’t read on here. Otherwise, share these tips with all your fellow players – don’t just keep them to yourself, that’s boring! The tips are deliberately
only hinted at so that there is still plenty to explore.
• It matters whether you steal from your left or right neighbor.
• It is not always best to reclaim a stolen stack, even if you could.
• The timing of a steal action is of great importance.
• Sometimes it is smart to Stalk a Creature (place a card in the pond), even though you could snatch with another card.
• If you can play a card either to snatch from the pond or to steal from an opponent, consider the different consequences.
• If you can snatch cards of different numbers with your card (e.g. you have a 4 and can put it on a 3 or a 4), the choice is important!
• Although the cards are equally frequent, they are not quite of equal value.
• Some cards should not be played on a whim, but instead saved for the right moment.