Publisher: Good Games Publishing
Player Count: 1-5 Players
Game Length: 60 Minutes
Complexity 2/5

As a competitive New York City dog walker, building an efficient business is the key to success. But when your business involves unpredictable 4-legged canines—each with their own unique preferences and personalities—you’ll often have to juggle the needs of the pets while still trying to stay on schedule in this thematically bright and family friendly board game. 

In Bark Avenue, you’ll be walking a variety of real-life dog breeds around the blocks of New York City, picking them up, giving them plenty of exercise and fun before dropping them back home. You’ll need to keep plenty of dog treats on hand and maybe a coffee or 2 to keep up with these energized pooches. Do a good job and you’ll receive great reviews as you watch your business grow and seek to become the most prestigious dog walker in NYC.

ON YOUR TURN

Bark Avenue is really about the dogs. There are 81 unique and beautifully illustrated dog breed cards in the game. While I don’t want to downplay the strategy, the real joy of the game will come from your appreciation of the dogs and their unique traits.

On your turn, you’ll be picking up dogs across the city. Each available dog has a home address where you’ll meet it. Once a dog is in your care, you’ll move across a map of New York City that’s based on real world locations.

Each dog has its own “speed” or movement available per turn as well as the length (or number of turns) it will need to be walked. Certain dogs will only get along with specific sized dogs and some dogs will want to just walk alone. There are ways to mitigate these challenges, but you’ll typically need to incorporate careful planning to ensure any dogs walked together will play nice.

While each dog will earn you a specific amount of money, garnering tips can certainly help out your cause. Owners love it when you take photos of the dogs, cater directly to the dogs needs (be it playing ball, visiting fire hydrants or splashing in water). This is also the only game I’ve ever played that rewards you for your dog taking a poop.

You’ll need to plan each dog’s journey so you’ll be able to drop it off at the right time. Miss your return appointment and you forgo tips and positive reviews.

The game plays over 17 turns, each turn introducing an event, change in the rules or modifying the available dogs. As your business rating increases, you’ll have access to bonuses such as extra dog treats or the ability to walk more dogs at once. In the end, the player with the most money is the winner.

ARTWORK & COMPONENTS

As I mentioned previously, the dog artwork is bright and cheery. The game’s 81 unique dogs are all based on real-life foster dogs across the United States. The dog illustrations are fun and really well done and will definitely appeal to dog fanatics. Additionally, the game board showcasing a stylizing layout of New York City helps further immerse you in the theme.

The game delivers what you’d expect from a high quality production. The rulebook does a fantastic job explaining the game and referencing the game’s more detailed aspects.

PROS & CONS

Vibrant, high quality artwork

Fun, friendly theme

Despite a bit of a learning curve with the iconography and some of the game’s cards, I was pleased with how easy the game was to learn.

Easy to teach

Theme matched well with the turn actions

Turns sometimes felt overly simple and little ho-hum

Efficiency puzzle where choices never felt too challenging leaving me a bit underwhelmed by the overall mechanics

WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS GAME?

There is no mystery here, this is a game for dog lovers. I’ve got a number of dog lovers in my family and we’ve played every dog game you can get your hands on. Taking everything into consideration, this is one of the best dog-themed implementations I’ve played. The developers certainly knew where they were going and did a great job catering to a pet-friendly audience.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS GAME?

I sound like a broken record, but the variety of dogs in the game is truly the best part. They’re all so bright, friendly and charming, it completely transcends the entire experience.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bark Avenue is a rare game where the charm coming from the theme saves what could have been a somewhat lackluster experience. The actual actions of moving around the board and grabbing bonuses often felt like I was repeatedly moving in a circle. But that’s really the life of a dog walker and finding a puddle for Nova, my Teacup Pomeranian, to splash in or walking through the park to play frisbee with Nico, a Bernice Mountain Dog, brought the game to life. The colors and the dogs and location provides a really friendly and fun thematic experience even if you’re not met with the most thoughtful or engaging decisions.

That being said, I think Bark Avenue does a nice job bringing a slightly more challenging experience to a genre of board games that are typically very light and simple. To be truly effective in the game, you really need to engage the planning and it will sometimes require a little thought to make sure you’re running your dog business smoothly. It’s certainly not overly complicated for anyone over age 10, but it will require strategy. In the end, I think many are going to find a sweet spot in the game’s overall experience.

I was pleasantly surprised by Bark Avenue and the wonderful theme really won me over. It seems to be flying under the radar a bit and that may be due to so many similar themed games hitting the market, but Bark Avenue definitely has a lot of quality, standout points. This may be the best dog-themed game I’ve played.

Publisher: Birdwood Games
Player Count: 1-4 Players
Dedicated Solo mode: Yes
Game Length: 40-80 Minutes
Complexity 2/5

In this family friendly game, players will take on the role of dog walkers itching to take local pets for a stroll around the park. Featuring a deck of 163 unique and beautifully illustrated dog breeds, you’ll compete with your fellow walkers to choose the right dogs for your kennel. Collect toys and treats to keep your dogs happy and in-line. Earn points by walking different types of dogs, pursue goals and plan your walking path in order to become the most accomplished walker around.

Dog Park is a light-hearted game of card drafting, set collection, point-to-point movement and a little bit of bidding all wrapped together in an attractively produced package. You’ll work to navigate the local dog park, dodging other walkers and collecting the right tokens to pair with your current and prospective dog clients. Players will score points in a variety of ways through objectives, tableau building and end game powers. Let’s dive in deeper and see if Dog Park is right for you.

ON YOUR TURN

Dog Park plays over 4 rounds, each with 4 distinct phases: Recruitment, Selection, Walking and Home Time.

To begin each round, players will secretly bid on dogs available to recruit into your kennel. Bidding requires reputation as collateral which serves as victory points in the game. So you’re weighing victory points in order to invest in dogs that will hopefully earn you more throughout the game. Each player will gain 2 dogs each round.

The dog deck is a pretty prominent feature in the game and deserves some exploration. This deck is composed of 163 unique dogs in 9 different breeds. Each dog features their own “needs” as well as a special ability. The needs are a basic cost to take that dog for a walk. This might mean you need a stick, bouncy ball and bone to keep this dog happy during its walk. The dog’s special ability is a benefit you receive while walking that dog in the park or at the end of the game.

From there players will simultaneously select up to 3 dogs to put on a leash (or activate) by paying that dog’s needs.

Once each player is ready, you’ll take turns moving through the park. As you land on different spots you’ll collect different toys and treats you can use on future turns. You can move 1-3 spaces so you basically move at your own pace. Faster walkers receive points bonuses for finishing first while slower walkers earn more resources. Walkers can’t share spaces unless they’re willing to part with reputation points, so you must carefully plan your path.

After returning from the park, players place their dogs back in the kennel and prepare for the next round. You never lose any recruited dog, so as the game progresses, you can walk dogs multiple times if it suits your strategy.

Walkers score points for end game bonuses on certain dog cards as well as points for collecting the most of a particular breed of dog. The player with the most points in the end is the winner.

ARTWORK & COMPONENTS

Dog Park’s crowning achievement is in its beautiful artwork. Like me, you might be happy just shuffling through the dog deck. Each dog is charmingly presented and there are so many of them that you can play many games without seeing the same ones! The individual and main boards are all illustrated in water colors and look amazing. Overall the artwork is an A+.

The components have a lot of personality. Each toy and treat token is shaped as its type and adds a lot of personality to the game. The game also features a really great storage solution that keeps everything organized that also provides super easy setup.

Overall, this is a very charming production that won’t disappoint.

PROS & CONS

 Beautifully illustrated theme

 Easy to teach, setup and play

 Great for non-gamers and younger kids as well as dog lovers

 Components add personality to a great production

 Different game modes for solo, 2 player and a group

 Larger player counts lead to more challenging decisions

 Might be too light for some tastes

 Walking your dog can feel a little cutthroat at times

WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS GAME?

This is the ultimate ode to dog lovers. The amazing deck of 163 dogs paired with the toy and treat tokens are big time crowd pleasers. Even the bone-shaped token holders caters to the audience. If you have an interest in dogs, you may bypass learning the gameplay all together and buy this just for the theme alone.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS GAME?

This should be no surprise if you’ve been reading the review up to this point: The dog deck is a home run. This is something the publisher could easily sell apart from the game. All 163 dogs are unique and they feature interesting notes about each one. This creates strong replayability since you’re likely to play multiple games without seeing the exact same dog pop up.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Dog Park has a lot going for it including instant appeal. Dog-themed games have been done before, but this is certainly the strongest theme and most attractive canine game to date. The wonderful presentation and artwork is certainly going to attract dog lovers and appeal to a wide audience.

The gameplay feels a bit like Wingspan and Parks came together and had a happier, friendlier child. The giant dog deck is very reminiscent of the bird deck from Wingspan. Each card is beautifully illustrated and features a fun fact about the animal. You even use the dog cards to form a mini tableau. It’s never terribly powerful, but you can create some interesting combos when you’re lucky enough to combine the right canines. The trek through the dog park has a similar feel to the path you take during Parks. Even blocking spots brings some strategic opportunities to put your opponents in difficult situations. Of course, any conflict created in the game is light and soon passes. These certainly aren’t negatives since the games I referenced  are hugely popular with crowd pleasing mechanics.

I did find playing with large player counts created more tension in the game. Spots in the park became more challenging to grab and bidding for the dogs was a little more engaging. The 2-player game is looser, but it does bring in an AI “character” to force higher bidding. Overall, I did enjoy it more at higher player counts, but I appreciated the quicker pace of the solo and 2-player modes.

In the end, this is a relatively light-weight, light-hearted game. The rules aren’t heavy and the turns are easy to figure out. There are a few variant rules to adjust the game’s difficulty, but they never push things too far. The theme combined with the simple mechanics really make this a great game for families and kids. The appeal of the theme and production make this a great gateway game that could really work to draw casual gamers more into the hobby. The choices are a little more involved and should delight players who may be only familiar with dice rolling and point-to-point movement games.

If you approach Dog Park with the right expectations, you’ll really appreciate what it does and how it does it so well. I can certainly see Dog Park gaining traction and ending up on the shelves of my local Walmart or Target—it seems like the accessibility would be hit with that audience while the artwork and production would seal the deal. Dog Park was obviously constructed with a lot of care and detail and does a lot of things right. I hope that something that works this well is able to find the audience to appreciate it.

Dog Lover
Designed by David Short
Published by Alderac Entertainment Group
2-4 Players  |  30 Minutes

Any dog lover can attest: in addition to the enjoyment, companionship and adventure a dog provides, they can also be a lot of work. Each dog has its own unique character that will affect how you train it, feed it and interact with it. In Dog Lover, you’re caring for unique dog’s that you’ll feed, walk, train and play with. You may want to rescue a pet from the shelter or discover your pet’s unique traits that make them special.

Dog Lover is a set collection game where players will be drafting cards from a grid, earning trick cards to expand your drawing power, selecting new dogs to live in your collection as well as cards to feed, grow and develop your pets. Earn points in a variety of ways such as discovering your pets’ unique traits, collecting things for you pet to pay with or building a strong collection of dog bones. The player with the most dogs at the end isn’t always the winner and there are a number of paths to victory in the family-friendly themed card game.