Lucky Dog Preview

I have recently suffered from hobby overload and had lost interest in playing and reviewing many games. It is regrettable, but also hopefully understandable and forgivable. That said, when Evan reached out to me from Evan’s Games about his new Kickstarter project asking for reviews, I was reluctant to agree at first, but I am so glad I did.

Lucky Dog is a very simple press your luck dice game for the entire family that takes as little as five minutes and not really many more with the full complement of players. In it players are vying for favor with their pet dog by doing as many activities with it that they can. The first player to reach the victory point goal will be the winner and take home the dog! If anyone is interested in taking home our dog, I’m taking offers.

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T

To setup, shuffle all the activity cards and create a draw pile. Reveal five cards to the table and pass all five dice to the first player. That’s it.

On a player’s turn they will first reveal cards from the deck until five cards are available to be claimed. Then they roll all five dice in attempts to claim cards using the dice results rolled. Each card has a title, the number of VP scored when claimed, and the dice results needed to claim the card.

After the player has rolled, they may choose to stop and claim all cards for which the dice have satisfied the requirements. For example, the photo above shows two revealed “Belly Rub” cards. The player merely needs to satisfy the requirements once in order to claim both cards. That said, with the “Belly Rub” card claimed, the player may also claim the “Chewie” card as both the “Belly Rub” and “Chewie” cards require a set of three of a kind. If the player is satisfied with their result, they may stop rolling. However, the player is allowed another two rolls of any or all dice, but then must keep the result after the third roll. They then claim all cards they have satisfied and total their score. If their score totals 20 or more VP the game will end once all players have had an equal number of turns. Then that winner may come pick up my dog. I’ll even provide the food.

Components. This is a prototype copy of the game, so all components are prototype quality. However, what I received was roughly a 4″ square box with cute art all throughout, a deck of cards, and five dice as shown. If this were the final production copy I would be happy with the components. The rulebook needs to be finalized, and if it were financially feasible it might be fun to have more interestingly-colored dice, but I would not complain one bit if it kept the white dice with black pips.

All in all, I am so happy to have been able to spend time with this game. I do believe this was a perfect little game to pull me out of my rut and I am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Lucky Dog is probably not a game that will be pulled out every game night, but I can see myself bringing this along with me every opportunity I can. It is perfect for those times when you need a break, or just need to play something quick and easy, but has a non-devastating push your luck mechanic that is supplemented with cute art on the cards.

If you are looking for a cute and quick little game that can almost fit in your pocket (unless you’re a dad like me and dons the ever-essential khaki cargo shorts) then I highly recommend you add Lucky Dog to your collection. The Kickstarter campaign launches July 25, 2023 so get there and back it as soon as you can!