Spots Review

Spots is a simple idea. Dogs have spots, dice have spots. Let's fill in a dogs spots with dice spots. Each player begins with 2 dogs and a backyard. There are 6 tricks laid out for players to use. These are the actions they can perform on their turn. Some let you roll dice and some will let you get new dogs or bones. When you roll dice, you can place them on a dog or into your backyard. If you don't like a roll, you can spend a treat and re-roll. Here's where it gets tricky, if the dice values in your backyard ever goes over 7 you must clear all of your dice from your dogs and your backyard. Its a high risk, high reward game. If you don't do a trick, you can score your dogs. If you have a completed dog you can simply score that one but there is no limit to how many dogs you can score and all completed ones must score at once. The first player to complete 6 dogs will win.

The Good: This is a great starter game. It's quick, it's simple, it's mean. I love the push your luck aspect of holding off scoring so you don't waste turns. It's fantastic to score 2-3 dogs at a time but absolutely soul crushing when you bust and lose everything. It's great. This is as approachable of a game that I've played in a long time and as a dog lover, I'm a big fan of the theme. All of the dogs have names and unique artwork showcasing a lot of personality.

The Not So Good: If you hate dice rolling then you are in for a rough time here. The whole game obviously revolves around this concept. The mitigation piece works nicely but even that can be frustrating since you cannot re-roll one die at a time. It's all or nothing.

Final Thoughts: I was pleasantly surprised by Spots. I tend to fall in the group of not liking dice games but I think that the push your luck side of the game took front and center. CMYK really excels at this concept. Spots will be a game I will almost always pull out to start or end a game night moving forward.

Thanks to CMYK for providing a review copy.