Story

In the wild, most humpback whales hunt by lunge fishing – they see a shoal of fish, and they lunge at them. It’s not very eff-FISH-cient!

Some pods of whales have developed a better technique, called “bubble net feeding”, where one whale dives down below the fish, blowing a spiral of confusing bubbles that encloses them, 

while the other whales swim around the outside, increasing the confusion with their songs and shadows.

In response, the fish crowd together into a tight ball, making for a much higher quality bite for the clever whales!

That’s what we are doing in Bubble Net – one whale is blowing the spiral of bubbles, while their two Podmates help Herd or Hold the fish until your Big Bite is ready!

Setup

Each player sets up their own board, with their player kit of 5 bubbles, 24 fish, and 2 Podmate tokens.

There are player kits for 4 in the box, but the game is infinitely expandable – buy another copy for more player kits, and now, 8 people can play!

Step 1: Move Bubbles

Every round, move a bubble from the back of the stream to the front.

This bubble is simulating the stream of bubbles blown by the first whale, deep underwater. The last bubble bursts as a new one emerges from the whale’s blowhole.

Whenever you move a bubble into a new segment, it moves all the fish in that lane in by one space, even if there are no fish in the outer spiral. Any fish that reach the center go into your belly! Move them to the “Belly” bubble on the bottom right of your board.

Step 2: Place Podmates

You have 2 Podmate whales to help you out. They each have 2 settings, one on each side, Herd and Hold.

Herd works just like a bubble – place your podmate in the Herding position on any segment not currently occupied by a bubble (on the side with the bubble by its nose) and push all the fish in that lane in by one spot.

Hold does not push any fish inwards, but instead of only guarding the one segment, like a bubble or a Herding Podmate, it guards each of the two adjacent segments as well, preventing fish from escaping from all 3 in the next phase.

Step 3: Fish Respond

The deck of Fish cards represents the attempts the fish make to escape.

Once everyone has completed steps 1 and 2, flip over a Fish card and take turns reading it out to the group.

If the segment is blocked by a whale or a bubble, the Fish do not move at all.

If there are no whales or bubbles guarding that segment, all Fish move out by one spot. Any Fish that move outside the spiral escape to be lunch another day. Move them to the “Freedom” bubble on the top left of your board.

Continue playing until any player achieves the “Fish Ball”.

End of Game: Big Bite

Game end is triggered whenever any player achieves the “Fish Ball”  after the Fish have responded.

If any player only has fish within the Inner Spiral of their board after step 3 (the Fish card), then they get to take a Big Bite, chomping all of the fish left on their board and moving them to their Belly.

Remaining players:

Any fish tokens on your board outside the Inner Spiral swim away to Freedom. Now, you, too, get to take a Big Bite of the remaining Inner Spiral fish!

How to win:

In Bubble Net, as in life, you are really only competing against yourself. As a humpback whale, it’s a win if you got enough to eat, and the same applies in this game. If there are more fish in your Belly than have escaped to Freedom, you have won Bubble Net!

It takes about 10 minutes to play each game, so you can play it between heavier games or while you wait for others to finish, or in your lunch break… Or over and over, all day! And once you know how to play, jump in at any time, sharing the Fish deck but playing until you achieve your own Big Bite – multiple groups can play overlapping games from the same deck of cards.

Additional Assets

Prefer to watch? Here’s our video teach:

More of a reader? Check out the draft rulebook below!

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