Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 10-20 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (of 10)

The Components

Hey! That's My Fish! comes with 60 hexes, 16 penguins, and 1 rules book.

Hexes: Small hexes which each depict 1, 2, or 3 fish on them. They're printed full-color on solid, linen-textured cardboard. A couple of my tiles have peeled a little bit from the die-cutting, but I suspect that's an uncommon issue.

Penguins: Four penguins each in the standard four penguin colors: red, blue, yellow, and green. They're cut evocatively and even painted a little bit, resulting in cute little penguin pieces.

Rulebook: A small, four-page rulebook that quickly explains the simple rules of the game and includes a few illustrations.

Overall, the components for Hey! That's My Fish! are of average quality: pretty and fairly easy to use. The price point is a little bit high for these components, but I still give it an average "3" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The object of Hey! That's My Fish! is to collect as many fish as you can.

Setup: The 60 hexes are randomly laid out in 8 rows, alternating between 7 and 8 hexes each. They're all face up so that you can clearly see where the fish clusters are. (Each hex has either 1, 2, or 3 fish on it.)

Each player then places 2-4 penguins (depending on the number of players). They place these one at a time and they must be placed on "1" fish hexes.

Play: On his turn a player moves one of his penguins. He must move it in a straight line, and may move it as little as 1 hex and as many hexes as is legal. Penguins must stop before they reach: the edge of the board; a break in the hexes; or another penguin.

After moving his penguin the player then picks up the hex which his penguin started on.

Ending the Game: A player leaves the game when he can't move any more of his penguins. (He takes the last hexes that his penguins are standing on.) When all the players are done moving, the game is over.

(Practically, the game actually ends when each player can see that his penguins are each on their own "islands" of ice. Each player then picks up any hexes on these islands which he could reach.)

The players then count up all their fish, and the player with the most wins.

Relationships to Other Games

Hey! That's My Fish! is what I refer to as an ultra-light filler. It takes just 15 minutes to play and is pretty simple. My previous ultra-light filler was For Sale (though that's a tiny bit on the long side) and before that Geschkent.

The best ultra-light fillers are very simple to explain and play very quickly, yet still have some depth of play. Hey! That's My Fish! meets these qualifications.

Hey! That's My Fish! was previously released in a different edition in Europe as Pingvinas.

Beyond that, Hey! That's My Fish! is definitely an abstract game. The theming is almost non-existant and the mechanics are simple.

The Game Design

As already noted, Hey! That's My Fish! meets the main qualifications for an ultra-light filler: it's easy and fast.

However, there's also a fair amount of tactical meat to the game. The moves are not entirely obvious. You can be very aggressive in the game, making clever blocking moves and carefully analyzing the vector-based movement.

As my wife put it, it's "simple, but not stupid".

I'm sure that Hey! That's My Fish! will get old after one or two dozen games. I've played it seven times so far, and for now it keeps making it into my gamebag, in case I need something to kill 10 minutes while waiting for something else to start.

Like the aforementioned Geschenkt and For Sale, Hey! That's My Fish! is at the top of its class for ultra-light fillers, and thus I've given it a full "5" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

The new abstract game, Hey! That's My Fish!, plays in an utterly amazing 10-15 minutes, yet has some strategic depth to it and a lot of fun confrontation. If you're looking for something new to keep a few friends occupied while you're waiting for the rest of the group to show up, this is a great option. And any game that encourages you to yell, "Hey! That's My Fish!" in the middle of the game is just plain cool.