Spots – First Thoughts
I love push your luck games. The thrill of taking a chance. Riding the curve of probability to achieve your goal. High fives when you stick the landing, commiserations when you don’t. Spots from publisher CMYK distills this mechanism into a game, set around some very strange looking dogs. The game is designed by Alex Hague, John Perry, and Justin Vickers with art from John Bond.
Cracking open Spots you are immediately struck by how right everything feels with the production. The dogs are adorably illustrated, goofy, and occasionally sinister. Dice are numerous and easy to hold lots of at once without the need for a shaker. Thick card for the actions everyone needs and adorable bones for re-rolls. Every component is well considered.
The game is not quite as pure push your luck as something like Can’t Stop, but it sure comes close. Starting with two puppers, your aim is to score 6 of them. Each dog comes with a number of spaces showing a die face. When a dog has all the spaces on it filled, you can score it.
Now this isn’t a game that is going to let you roll a single dice and try and find a home for them. You have to do tricks instead. These tricks are one of the 6 actions you can take on your turn. Choose and action, turn it over, do what it says. Your first play has some suggested tricks to use.
Each trick allows you to manipulate the game. Grab a new dog (you also get a new dog when you complete one). Grab some bones. Most allow you to roll and manipulate dice. When you do roll, you have to put all the dice your roll either on dogs or bury them in your yard. Bury 8 or more in your yard and you are bust ending your turn. This sends dice scattering as if your dog is shaking off after a torrential downpour.
Several of the tricks allow you to keep rolling dice, enticing you to push as far as you dare. Can you avoid the bust? Maybe but the game gives you another incentive to push.
You need to score dogs once all their spaces are full. You can pass on doing a trick to do this. If all your dogs are complete after a trick, and after you’ve placed all the dice, then you can score them all straight away. Fast and risky, but potentially awarding.
Spots is a game that provides plenty of incentive to push your luck, and variable tools to achieve that. Its got a bit more bite to it than Can’t Stop, a good next step for someone looking for their next step in push your luck games. It feels like a game to pop in the bag, put your dog on a leash, and go out and find someone to play with. Just remember, they are all good dogs Brett. Even Doog.
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