Kelp: Shark vs Octopus
One player hunts with dice, the other hides with cards. Learn the Octopus’s blocks, Shark’s currents, updated Eat-card rules and three ways the game ends.
An asymmetric underwater pursuit: the Octopus hides, develops its cards and hunts food; the Shark patrols, searches and risks exhaustion in the chase.
Kelp: Shark vs Octopus is a 2024 two-player board game designed by Carl Robinson and published by Wonderbow Games. The Octopus uses a deck and concealed blocks to evade detection; the Shark builds a bag of dice to navigate, search and attack. Both players can win, but their routes to victory are fundamentally different.
Why Kelp feels different
Each player has different components, choices and pressures. The Octopus must keep its true identity hidden while building a better deck; the Shark must use movement, probability and deduction without letting the Hunger Track fill up.
Kelp rules at a glance: what each player is trying to do
The Shark must locate the hidden Octopus block, strike it using a red die and then win a secret-card confrontation. Merely finding the Octopus with a search die does not win: the Shark must mount a successful attack.
The Octopus wins in either of two ways: eat all four food blocks, or survive long enough for the Shark to become exhausted. Exhaustion happens when the seventh die is placed on the Shark’s Hunger Track. The race has a built-in timer, because striking and spending stored Energy can both advance hunger.
The turns are asymmetric. The Octopus has a concise two-action turn powered by its own card deck. The Shark performs a more procedural sequence: draw and roll dice, place Currents, move, search or strike, advance Growth and spend Energy. Players alternate, and the Octopus goes first in the standard setup.
The rest of this guide separates the roles so a first-time player can follow their own decisions without learning every possible move by the opponent. We use the publisher’s updated v1.3 rules, especially its revised limit on learning Eat cards.
What is hidden on the board?
The board depicts a kelp forest divided into zones. Some are easier to search than others. The Octopus secretly controls upright blocks in spaces across the forest; one represents the Octopus itself, while others are shells, traps or food. When the Shark searches a block, it is laid down with its identity revealed to both players. A revealed block stays visible until another effect hides or moves it.
For the physical game, keep hidden blocks oriented so only the Octopus player can see the symbols. Revealed blocks lie down, icon up. All adjacency rules for these blocks are orthogonal—up, down, left or right—not diagonal. This is especially important for swapping blocks and for the Octopus’s eating requirement.
The Shark follows its own Current spaces and movement paths around the zones. The Shark miniature does not simply move onto a concealed block. Instead, a successful yellow Search or red Strike die lets the Shark investigate or attack a block in an eligible adjacent zone.
The map also contains a Food Track for eaten prey, a Hunger Track for the Shark’s exhaustion and four Growth tiles that provide Shark upgrades. They serve different purposes and must not be confused.
Setup essentials for a first game
Place the board centrally and seat one player as the Octopus and the other as the Shark. The Shark puts 7 blue Current dice, 3 yellow Search dice and 1 red Strike die into its bag. Leave the remaining dice as the supply. Shuffle the Shark card deck, reveal four cards in the market and prepare the four Growth tiles.
The Octopus prepares its starter deck and separate card piles for Move, Hide, Learn and Eat. Create the concealed block setup using the Octopus bag, with the icons facing only the Octopus. Arrange the Shark’s and Octopus’s three Confrontation cards each beside the board. Prepare both player aids and the hand-size marker.
Important rules-version difference: older printed or online setups may show the Eat cards differently. Under the official v1.3 update, shuffle the four Eat cards, keep their pile face down and turn only the top Eat card face up. This restricts access to the next Eat card until an earlier one has been learned.
For the starter hand, the Octopus includes Fast Learning plus three other starter cards. The Octopus chooses one Shark den to place the Shark facing inward. The Octopus takes the first turn.
Setup check: the published rules contain diagrams for zone placement and block composition. Follow the official v1.3 rulebook for the exact positions rather than guessing the locations of the concealed blocks, traps or food.
Octopus turn: choose exactly two actions
The Octopus takes two actions per turn and may repeat an action. There are three choices:
- Play one card. Pay its reveal cost by exposing the required number of concealed blocks, then carry out the card’s effect. You cannot play a card unless you can pay its entire cost and perform the required effect.
- Draw back up to hand size. Starting hand size is four. Drawing is an action rather than something the Octopus automatically does at the end of each turn. If the draw pile is empty when drawing is required, shuffle the discard pile into a new draw pile.
- Discard one card, then hide one revealed block if possible. You ignore the card’s printed cost and effect for this choice.
Move cards rearrange blocks through swapping or shuffling. A swap exchanges orthogonally adjacent blocks while keeping their hidden/revealed status; shuffle effects use the Octopus bag to obscure where formerly concealed blocks have gone. Hide cards help regain secrecy after paying reveal costs or surviving a search.
At the end of the Octopus turn, put the cards played that turn in the discard pile unless a specific effect says otherwise. Because card play may reveal the real Octopus, effective defense is a balance between gaining abilities and maintaining uncertainty for the Shark.
How Learn and Eat work under official rules v1.3
Learn cards improve the Octopus’s deck or introduce new blocks into play. Newly gained cards normally go to the discard pile. When a block is learned, it must be swapped in for an already revealed block on the board and enters play revealed.
The publisher changed the handling of Eat cards in rulebook v1.3. Learning an Eat card also grants its matching food block for free; that card-plus-block combination counts as a single learned item. But the Octopus may learn no more than one Eat card on a turn. At the end of a turn in which one was learned, reveal the next Eat card at the top of the pile so it can be acquired on a future turn.
To actually eat a food block, that food must be on the board and the true Octopus block must be orthogonally adjacent to it. The Octopus must also play the matching Eat card from hand. Reveal the Octopus and food, remove the food to the next space on the Food Track, replace it with a spare shell and trash the used Eat card out of the game.
Eaten food provides a one-time bonus effect, which can be used at the permitted timing. The fourth eaten food block completes the Food Track and gives the Octopus an immediate victory. A food block being learned or placed on the board is not the same as being eaten.
Rulebook caution: v1.2 summaries commonly omit the one-Eat-card-per-turn restriction. When using an older physical rulebook, use the publisher’s v1.3 errata and FAQ to avoid accidentally accelerating the Octopus’s food victory.
Shark turn order: dice, movement, searching and striking
At the beginning of a normal Shark turn, draw two dice from the bag and roll them. Later Growth abilities may let you draw extra dice. The dice perform different jobs:
- Blue Current dice create movement shortcuts on empty Current spaces.
- Yellow Search dice reveal block identities in nearby zones.
- Red Strike dice attack a block, potentially beginning the confrontation that wins the game.
The Shark may place blue Currents, then must move along the Shark paths. Normally that means moving to the next unoccupied Current space; blue Currents can be used to swim further. A chain of Current dice must be followed in strictly decreasing die values. The values do not need to be consecutive, only descending.
To search or strike, the Shark places an eligible yellow or red die in an orthogonally adjacent zone and must meet its zone-value threshold. Search exposes the block but does not attack it. Strike attacks and reveals the selected block, and if it is the Octopus, a confrontation begins at once.
Used yellow dice and the first used Current from a movement go towards Growth. Used red Strike dice instead move to the Hunger Track, which is why repeated attacks carry a cost. Any unused dice can be considered for stored Energy according to the Shark’s normal turn sequence.
Shark Growth, Energy and the Hunger Track
The Shark gains permanent improvements by filling Growth tiles with dice from searching and movement. When a tile’s spaces are full, return those dice to the bag and flip the tile to activate its ability. Examples include rerolls and the chance to draw more dice in later turns.
Stored Energy lets the Shark acquire cards from a row of four. Add the pips on stored dice, select affordable Shark cards, then add the dice shown on the cards to the Shark bag. This is an important way of acquiring more red Strike dice, which are necessary for winning the game.
Spending Energy comes at a cost: move one stored die onto the Hunger Track each time you spend Energy during a turn. The publisher explicitly clarifies that this is one Hunger die per turn in which stored Energy is spent, not one for each individual card bought. Strike dice that are used to attack are another source of Hunger.
As soon as the seventh die is placed on the Hunger Track, the Shark is exhausted and the Octopus wins immediately. The Shark therefore cannot safely buy cards or make speculative Strikes indefinitely.
Strategic illustration: getting a powerful Shark card may make future attacks more reliable, but if there is only one Hunger space left, the purchase itself can cost the game. The published FAQ confirms an especially dangerous case in which the Shark lacks red dice and cannot acquire more without exhausting itself.
The three ways Kelp ends—and the confrontation showdown
There are exactly three base-game victory routes: the Octopus wins by eating all four food blocks or by exhausting the Shark; the Shark wins by landing a successful Strike on the real Octopus and winning the ensuing confrontation.
When a Strike hits the Octopus, both players secretly select one of their available three colored Confrontation cards. They reveal simultaneously. The Shark’s counter cards are paired to the Octopus’s survival strategies. If the Shark selects the matching color, it wins immediately. If not, the Octopus escapes and resolves its chosen survival effect.
After an escape, the used Octopus card and its paired Shark counter leave the game. The next confrontation has only two remaining choices, and a third confrontation has a single choice left—so the Shark eventually gets a certain counter if it can still reach and successfully Strike the Octopus before being exhausted.
A Search is not a Strike: revealing the Octopus with a yellow die tells the Shark where it is, but does not trigger the colored-card showdown. Likewise, a red Strike that finds an empty shell is not a successful hit. These distinctions are essential to a fair first game.
The publisher’s FAQ adds that with only one confrontation pair remaining, the Shark automatically wins after a successful Strike; it does not need to play a card that would remove that last remaining pair first.
Kelp beginner strategy: Octopus versus Shark
Octopus priorities
- Track how many blocks are revealed. Card effects have costs, and exposing the true Octopus too early makes it easier for the Shark to search, follow and attack.
- Use swaps and shuffles to break certainty. A known block’s identity is less helpful to the Shark if the hidden positions can be changed by a later effect.
- Build toward realistic food opportunities. Learning an Eat card is only one step; you still need the matching food on the board and a legal adjacent Octopus position.
- Remember the v1.3 limit. One learned Eat card per turn changes how quickly you can build towards the food victory.
- Exploit the clock. If the Hunger Track is nearly full, surviving safely may be better than revealing yourself to pursue a risky fourth meal.
Shark priorities
- Use Searches to narrow possibilities. Searching is information; Strikes should ideally be made when there is evidence the Octopus is in reach.
- Build useful Current chains. Decreasing-value blue dice can extend movement without sacrificing multiple turns to reach another zone.
- Watch both the Growth and Hunger Tracks. Gaining a permanent upgrade and spending a Hunger die are very different costs.
- Value red dice without overspending. A Shark with no opportunity to Strike cannot win, but buying too late may cause exhaustion.
- Remember previous discoveries. A revealed shell is not the Octopus, unless a later block-manipulation effect creates new uncertainty.
These are independent editorial principles derived from the published mechanisms, not claims of hands-on playtesting or additions to the game’s official rules.
Which role is easier to learn?
The Octopus has fewer action types: play a card, draw to hand size, or discard a card to hide a block. That can make individual decisions easy to explain, but the Octopus must remember concealment, position changes, learned cards and eating requirements.
The Shark has a longer turn procedure and must distinguish blue, yellow and red dice, zone-value thresholds, dice bag upgrades and Hunger. In exchange, the Shark can actively reveal information and react to the board. Which side feels easier may depend on whether a player prefers deduction with dice or stealth with cards.
For an introductory match, let the players look over both role aids before choosing sides. A second match with the roles reversed can show how the same information and board state look from the other perspective. Because Kelp is asymmetric, it is not useful to compare each side as though they were scoring the same points.
Expansions: Brilliant Behaviours and New Pursuits
The base game is complete by itself. Wonderbow also sells optional mini-expansions, including Brilliant Behaviours and New Pursuits. These add extra twists but are not required to use the standard rules.
Brilliant Behaviours bundles six mini-expansions that may be combined. The publisher describes modules that can advantage one player, change the board or introduce new strategic situations.
New Pursuits introduces a race to complete special objectives for a boost. Some regional product listings vary by language, so check the edition before purchase. In every case, these are additions to the base game, not alternate ways to interpret the v1.3 rulebook.
Players searching for another short asymmetric game can compare Raptor or Fugitive. For a two-player deduction or card challenge with very different information management, explore Agent Avenue. Their win conditions and mechanisms differ, but each offers a concentrated head-to-head experience.
Kelp: Shark vs Octopus FAQ
Can you play Kelp solo?
There is no official solo mode in the standard product description. Kelp is designed as an asymmetric game for exactly two players.
How long does Kelp take?
The publisher gives 40–60 minutes. First sessions can take longer while players learn their different role procedures.
How does the Octopus win?
By eating all four food blocks or causing the Shark to fill the seventh Hunger Track space.
How does the Shark win?
By successfully striking the true Octopus with a red die and choosing the correct matching Confrontation card.
Does finding the Octopus with a yellow Search die win the game?
No. Searching reveals information. The Shark must successfully Strike the Octopus and win a confrontation.
How many actions does the Octopus take per turn?
Two actions, and the same action can be chosen twice. There are three normal action types.
Can the Octopus learn two Eat cards in one turn?
No under official rules v1.3. At most one Eat card may be learned in a turn. The next Eat card is revealed at the end of that turn.
Is the matching food block included when learning an Eat card?
Yes. The matching food block comes free with that Eat card and the combination counts as one learned item.
When does the Shark become exhausted?
As soon as the seventh die is placed on the Hunger Track. The Octopus wins immediately.
Does buying several Shark cards place several dice on the Hunger Track?
Not simply because of the number of cards. The publisher clarifies that using stored Energy puts one die on Hunger for that turn, regardless of how many cards are acquired.
Can a Shark attack an already revealed Octopus?
Yes, provided it satisfies the red Strike die placement conditions. The colored-card confrontation then begins.
Do diagonal spaces count as adjacent?
No. Block adjacency in Kelp is orthogonal, not diagonal.
Sources, updated rules and editorial disclosure
The primary sources are Wonderbow Games’ official rules and FAQ and its English Kelp rulebook v1.3. For the base game and optional modules, refer to the official Kelp collection, the Brilliant Behaviours listing, and the New Pursuits listing. The Board Game Arena rules summary is supplementary and may describe earlier card arrangements.
Fact check: October 16, 2026. The core explanation uses base-game mechanics and explicitly incorporates the publisher’s v1.3 Eat-card clarification. The tactical examples and who-it-suits commentary are original editorial analysis, not first-hand playtest claims. Game names and terms identify the relevant products; no publisher artwork is copied onto this page.