Hello there, First name / friend! I hope you love dogs, because I have a great game this week for dog lovers! I mean how cute is that artwork? Your job is the dog walker. You'll add dogs to your kennel and take them on a walk through the park. |
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Dog Park can be played with 1-4 players. It takes about an hour to play, give or take. It's recommended for ages 10 & up. It's considered medium light strategy, on the same level of games like Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne, although I think this one is a little more involved than those. After setting up the board, it's time to recruit your first dog! You'll read through the special rules on each of the dogs in the field and decide which one you want most. As fast as you can, you'll place a bid using your victory points (called reputation - you start with 5) on this special wheel shown in the middle picture. Then you place your dog walker on the track below one of the dogs. If playing with 2 players, you'll have a ghost player that always bids on the most popular dog breed. These breeds are placed randomly during set up, shown by the colored cards in the last picture on the left side of the board. The ghost player does not earn points, but is still considered a player in the game. The first time you play, feel free to leave out the ghost player just to get a feel for the game. |
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After choosing and paying reputation for your first dog, you'll put out new dogs and do this one more time. These two dogs are now part of your kennel. Your goal is to take the dogs in your kennel for a walk through the park. Each dog has a cost that you'll have to pay to walk them, shown on the left of the card. My coonhound costs a stick, ball, and toy. I had those in my starter resources, so I paid them and placed that dog on my walking mat. My spaniel costs 2 sticks. With 1 stick, 1 ball, and 1 bone left, I had to do a swap. You can trade any 2 resources for 1 resource. I swapped a ball and bone for a stick. This way I could walk both of my dogs. When you walk them, you put a collar on their card, shown in the picture on the right. |
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Now you are ready to walk your dogs! The person with the doghouse goes first. This just gets passed around clockwise each round. You'll take turns moving 1 to 4 spaces through the park, collection resources and whatnot. If playing with a ghost player, you'll roll their dice to see how far they go. You go around taking turns until all, but 1 player has left the park. At that time, the remaining player leaves the park, shown in the right two pictures below. Then you score points for each dog you walked and lose points for unwalked dogs in your kennel. |
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Now you're ready for round 2 of 4. To keep track of your rounds, you'll move this bird around with each phase. Each round plays the same. You'll bid on two dogs and add them to your kennel. Choose the dogs you want to walk, a maximum of 3. Then go on your walk through the park. |
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Another thing I wanted to point out is how you exit the park. The second to last person to exit can choose whether they want 1 reputation point or if they want to swap a dog from their kennel with one in the field. You also get to put a collar on this dog as if you walked it. 🙌 |
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This is what my kennel looked like at the end of the game (4 rounds). Now it's time to go through end of game scoring. Some dogs get special points at the end of the game (shown on the bottom of the cards). You'll also figure out who gets breed expert points for having the most of each breed, including the ghost player. If there's a tie, you'll share the points. |
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That's the gist of it! Took longer than I thought it would. 🤪 But I swear once you play a couple of rounds it all makes a lot of sense. What have you been playing lately? What do you want to see next? |
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