Dogs With Jobs: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Hand Management, Multi-Use Cards
Player Age: 7+
Player Count: 2 - 5 Players
Game Designer: John Gordon
Game Artist: Jonathan Wesslund
BGG Weight: 2.00
Publisher: Lab 380
Time to Play: 15 - 30 Minutes
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Introduction:
Dog with Jobs is a hand management game where players recruit a team of up to four unique dog units to then complete jobs. The more jobs a player's team completes, the more positive points they gain. Negative points are gained by having dog units with incomplete jobs or jobs (cards) remaining in hand after the eight rounds. As players recruit their dogs they unlock unique abilities to produce stronger actions and manipulate the game state. For a unit of dogs to complete a job they need to meet or exceed the job number.
Game Anatomy:
Jobs:
Jobs will come in one of five categories (that match the dog categories); agriculture, defence, rescue, detection, support. The values in the top left of the card are the job's reward points. Players will gain these points if they complete the job or lose these points at the end of the game if they remain in hand.
There are two special types of jobs; Wild jobs that can be completed by any dog, and Special Condition jobs that give additional points (rather than the regular points) if met by the end of the game.
Dogs:
There are ten dogs types covering the five job categories. Each job category is covered twice and each dog type will appear six times in the deck with an experience level ranging 1-6 (occurring once each).
Each dog card has several characteristics, their job, wonderful art, experience level of the dog (used for recruiting and completing jobs), a job category and a special ability the player unlock if recruited.
Round Tracker:
This game contains eight rounds of play which will be tracked after the last player's turn. Once this moves off the eight rounds the game will end and scoring will commence.
Setup:
- Deal six job cards to each player, where the player with the team leader card decides who will go first. That player with the team leader card will now discard it and start the game with one less job card.
- Shuffle the dog cards to reveal five face-up, creating a marketplace and keeping the remainder in a deck next to the job cards.
- Place the round marker on round one.
How to Play:
On a turn a player has two choices; select any action twice or select two different actions. These actions include; recruit, complete jobs, draw new jobs, and use a dog ability. Once every player has a turn the display of dogs is discarded, refreshed, and the round tracker moves one space forward. Scoring will commence after the eight rounds.
Actions:
Recruit Dogs:
To recruit, a player discards up to two jobs from their hand creating a recruitment strength based on the combined reward value. This allows the player to recruit any amount of dogs from the marketplace as long as the value does not exceed this recruitment value. Each player can only have four unique dogs, however each dog can be a unit to increase their job strength. Each unit can contain a maximum of three dogs and must contain the same dog type. The dog marketplace does not refresh until the end of the players turn.
Complete a Job:
One job can be played from the player's hand face-down under a unit if that unit matches the same job category and the value of the unit meets or exceeds the job's reward.
Each unit can have a maximum of three jobs completed underneath them.
Draw New Jobs:
Draw two jobs to add to the players hand from the top of the job deck.
Use Dog Ability:
The game comes with an interesting way to draft and manage new actions. As dogs are recruited, if they are in a players team they will unlock additional abilities that can be activated instead of the stock standard actions explained above.
Some of these abilities can be confrontational, such as stealing jobs/dogs. The guard dog allows the players a way to mitigate this by guarding their fellow dogs, locking them into a state that doesn't allow that unit to add jobs or dogs until they are unguarded.
Scoring:
After the eight rounds, players will score the job value in the top left for any job they have completed. If any of these jobs have a special scoring condition at the bottom of the card, the player will instead score this value if the requirement is met. After the jobs have been scored players will lose points equal to any jobs value in that player's hand, as well as lose ten points for any unit that hasn't completed any jobs.
Final Thoughts:
- Choosing the team and units of dogs is vital for not only the type of jobs they can complete but also the actions they unlock.
- There are confrontational actions of stealing other players dogs or jobs. Some players may not enjoy this but I believe more dogs from an expansion might fix this.
Dogs With Jobs is a great casual weeknight game that has a quick playtime with an easy to recall ruleset. Within this ruleset there are many decisions in how players can mitigate their negative points (leftover jobs) while pushing their luck in the goal to fulfill more jobs. My favourite aspect is that players are choosing which special objectives they are trying to achieve on the jobs (as any job can be discarded to recruit), and players are also deciding which actions to pursue as determined by how they build their tableu. Each player can have four overall dog types, three dogs of each type within a unit, and each unit can complete three jobs. This sounds pretty restrictive but with the range of actions it is actually the right level of restrictive. It requires the players to plan the jobs they are pursuing without being too punishing if a mistake is made on the way. I really enjoy this smart and fast hand management game, that is wrapped in a unique theme of dogs that carry out essential jobs.
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