Designed by: Alex Hague,Jon Perry,Justin Vickers
Spots is a push-your-luck game of completing dog cards by adding dice to them – to represent the spots in question (see pics!)
Everyone starts with two dog cards, a treat, and a single die rolled and placed their yard. Six action cards are placed face-up on the table, and the player with the highest value die goes first.
Each turn you’ve two options. Most of the time you’ll be taking option one, which is choosing an action card: flip it face-down and do whatever the action card says – which largely involves rolling dice. If you roll numbers that match your dog cards, you place the dice on the cards in question. If you don’t, they are (usually) placed in your yard: and if the dice value in your yard exceeds seven, you bust: you lose the dice in your yard (good) but all dice on your dogs too (bad). What can save you from this fate? Well, treats can be spent to re-roll bad dice results – but you must re-roll all dice, not just the ones you don’t like. You might take an action that gives you more treats, or more dogs. Or you could forego taking an action for option two: bank any complete dog cards, flipping them face-down and taking replacements from the deck. These dogs are now safe from busting, but it cost you a turn to make them so.
The temptation to always take an action is that if while doing so you complete all your face-up dog cards, they bank themselves instantly.
When all but one action card is face-down, the remaining card has a treat put on it (to be claimed by whomever takes that action next) and all action cards flip face-up, ready to be selected again. The first player to complete six dog cards wins!
There are one or two action cards (see Again Again below) that could impact directly on opponents, by deliberately busting them for instance. But largely the interaction is passive, of the I-took-the-action-you-wanted type.
Very low with two, climbing incrementally with three and then four players. But nothing too ponderous.
There's a little maths to consider if you're playing with the very young. But Spots is in the main a tactical game that asks you to gauge how lucky you feel against your more conservative instincts.
Huge variety in the box, because you only ever use six action cards and there are lots of different set-ups. But even playing with the introductory set-up there's variety through player input and dice output. It's a game for those who enjoy pushing their luck and won't feel the experience ruined if it blows up in their faces!
2-4
Players
6+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
Spots is a thoroughly enjoyable game with any number of players, with the caveat highlighted in Again Again: things will usually go wrong at some point, so players need to be okay with those moments. The tantalising dread of that happening is partly what makes Spots so good, as your instincts to play it safe or chance your arm constantly whisper like devils on each shoulder. It's also delightfully presented, with a huge amount of variety in the box. A go-to good time.