Spots

‘Spots’ is a fairly quick push-your-luck dice-rolling game that has an interesting modular rule set and actually has quite a lot going on in terms of complexity when you’re trying to work out the mathematics behind the probability of what’s best to do next.

You start the game with two dog cards that have a number of dice on them. You also have a Boneyard where you can put dice that you can’t place on your turn. You can do one of two things. Firstly, if you have a card that is completely full, you can turn it over, essentially locking that dog in and making sure that you can’t lose the dice on that card. The other thing you can do is perform an action on a card. These actions range from variations of rolling and discarding dice, altering the dice in your and other players’ boneyards, picking up extra dogs, picking up treats that let you re-roll, or re-rolling your buried dice.

What you are essentially trying to do is roll the dice that match the numbers on your cards. If you aren’t able to match those, any dice that you don’t have must be placed in your Boneyard, and if at any point you go over seven in your Boneyard, you lose all dice currently placed on cards and have to start from scratch.

The first person to 6 complete dogs wins.

Unlike most period games where you are simply rolling dice because, at the beginning of your turn, you have a choice of things you can do, it means there is a lot more thought that goes into what is the most efficient and best play on your turn.

What I also like is similar to games such as The Quacks of Quedlinburg, the cards you use are modular, which means that you can have different actions each time you play.

I am a big fan of push-your-luck games in general, and this really is one of the best, playing similar-ish to a game such as ‘Roll for It’ or ‘Monster 12,’ offering that little bit extra complexity to make it that little bit more engaging and give you a decent sense of variety each time you play.

Overall, the components are good. I do have a slight issue with the dice that are custom and designed to look like the spots of the Dalmatians; they don’t seem to be of the absolute best quality. I also feel that somehow the weight of the dice is a little bit off because when we practised with a handful of dice, if you rolled them, it seemed like you were going to get similar rolls with each die each time, and while this could just be a coincidence, it felt like it happened regularly, and this isn’t something I’ve ever really noticed before when playing a dice rolling game.

Overall, ‘Spots’ is an outstanding push-your-luck game that offers a little bit more complexity than some of the ones you might have played before and is definitely a strong recommendation that you should have in your collection.”