Spots Review

August 22, 2024

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Let’s start this review as if I were writing a Facebook post ten years ago. Henlo readers. Spots is a game where you add dice to cards to make doggos! You roll the dice to see how many spots you add to each of the heccin good bois. Complete six puppers first and you win the game. Some of the dogs are chonks, some are smol, but all are frens. Hooman, you are going to have much happs. Big smiles showing teefs. I’m doing me a fun!

If you listen closely you can hear the collective rolling of eyes of everyone under the age of 20 as they despair. Regardless, Spots is deserving of the attention and applause it’s garnered so far, and here’s why.

Push it real good

I love push your luck in games. I’m a sucker for it and my games frequently come undone when I convince myself I can beat the odds. If you’re not sure what I mean when I talk about push your luck, go and check out Sid Sackson’s Can’t Stop on BGA. Spots tempts the gambler in all of us in a similar way.

Each player starts with a couple of cards in front of them, and each card has a dog with a number of places for you to add dice. The pips on the dice become the spots on the dogs, who presumably all have a bit of Dalmation in them somewhere back in their family trees. Taking a turn is a case of choosing one of the six tiles on the table and doing what it tells you to. Maybe you choose Walk which lets you roll two dice, then if you want to, you can roll another.

some of the action tiles from the game — Action tiles get temporarily flipped once someone uses them.

All of the dice you roll on each turn have to go somewhere. Preferably on a matching spot on one of your dogs, but if you don’t have a place for them to go, they get buried in your Yard – a little player board beside your cards. If the total of the dice in your yard ever tops 7, you bust, and all of the dice on your unscored dogs get taken off and returned to the supply, forcing you to start again.

You don’t have to take an action though. Instead, you can spend your turn scoring, where you remove the dice from any completed dog cards and flip them over, securing them, and drawing more cards from the draw pile to replace them. It makes sense to do this, after all, six completed dogs wins the game.

Or…

Fast and loose

Spots has a great mechanism which tempts you into going for just one more roll. Instead of taking a turn to score any completed dog cards, you can try taking a risk. If you manage to place dice that finish all of your dog cards at once, without busting, you automatically get to score them all. This game gets really tight towards the end, so not having to spend a turn to score cards gets really tempting. I speak from experience when I tell you that it often doesn’t work out the way you’d hoped.

A player area from spots — Rupert here can be scored. But do you wait and gamble on finishing Gretchen, Momo and Gyoza first…?

The first time you play Spots you might feel like it’s very light, that there are very few decisions to make at any given time. Roll as many dice as I can, as safely as I can, and hope they match my dogs, right? Actually there’s more to it than that. I mentioned rolling safely just before, but what constitutes safe? Let’s say you’ve mostly filled your dogs, but you’ve already got a 5-pip buried in your yard. You’re worried about busting and you only want to roll 2s and 3s. Instead of taking an action to roll a bunch of dice, you might spot a dog on top of the deck with 4, 5, and 6 spaces on it. Taking a turn to claim that card (it’s on one of the action tiles) could make your upcoming turns a lot safer.

There are little red bone tokens in the game too. They’re called treats. You can discard a treat to re-roll all of the dice you just rolled, which can get you out of a tricky situation more times than you’d imagine. Likewise, taking a ‘dead turn’ to use one of the actions that gives you treats can benefit you down the line. Making a simple choice like taking these ‘unproductive’ turns adds an unexpected layer of fun to the game. Kids will just have a blast rolling dice and filling in dogs, but those of you who like a bit more in there games will really appreciate moments like these.

Final thoughts

Spots has already become a favourite here at home. It’s quick to learn, packs in tons of variety (there are loads of different action tiles you can mix and match), and it’s stupidly charming. The dogs on the cards (and at least one cow…) are gorgeous, and we spend plenty of time holding cards up saying “Oh look, this one is definitely Jeff”. Jeff’s my pug, by the way.

Some of the dog cards from Spots — Call me suspicious, but there’s something a little off with Doog. Also, put it away Burt, no-one wants to see it.

There’s a big enough decision space to keep players of all levels happy, but even non-gamers will get a kick out of it. It’s really easy to overthink what you’re doing and to find out a child or someone who never plays games has beaten you, and that’s one of Spots’ greatest strengths. It makes you feel clever, no matter what you choose to do, and it provides a much more level playing field for a table of mixed ages and abilities. You can helpfully point out where someone has a safe roll for example, where it’s impossible to bust.

Cute cards, a table full of dice that you’ll end up chucking by the handful, and a game that’s done and off the table in about half an hour. It’s the perfect time-killer, game to play while you’re waiting for a train, meeting someone new at a convention, or starting or closing out games nights. If you can’t stand luck in any form, you might not have a good time here, but if you like pushing your luck and taking a bit of a gamble, you’ll love it to bits, just like I do, frens.

Review copy kindly provided by CMYK. Thoughts and opinions are my own.