Spots

Push your luck. Collect dogs.

Every card is a dog with a number of spots printed on it, and every dog wants dice. Fill one and it joins your pack; six dogs and you've won. John Bond's illustrations are doing an enormous amount of work here, because it turns out to be very difficult to be coldly strategic about a beagle.

Roll your dice and place what you can onto the dogs in front of you. Anything you can't place gets buried in your yard — bury too many and you bust, losing everything you'd built up that turn. That's the entire game, and it's plenty: there's a real decision sitting in every single turn about whether to roll once more or stop while you're ahead, and the answer is never quite obvious. Two minutes to teach, thirty to play.

Perfect for: The friend who says "one more turn" and means it, and any family where the youngest player needs a realistic chance of winning.

1–4 players | 30 minutes | Age 10+