Zoomies from designer Magnus Karlsson and publisher Fireside Games is an unexpected delight. This game challenges 2-4 players to get the highest score by helping your pups make friends, collect bones, become the leader of the pack, and get the zoomies!
I had a lot of fun playing Zoomies and know it will be entering my regularly played games list.
What’s in the box?
The game is packaged in a medium sized box and comes with 50 dog tiles, 16 round scoring tokens, 16 square scoring tokens, and a rulebook. Everything was a great quality and I love the art. The zoomies versions of the five breeds are so funny. In the game there are poodles, chihuahuas, beagles, huskies, and greyhounds.
The tiles also have no icon, a zoomies icon, or a bone icon, which is important in scoring.
How’s it play?
Gameplay in Zoomies is super easy but still requires some strategy for scoring, which makes it entertaining. Each player gets eight scoring icons, which are double sided, requiring players to decide if they’re going to attempt to score for leaders, bones, frens, or zoomies.
Three tiles are placed to start the “dog park” and each player always has two tiles in hand. On each turn, you must place a dog tile. The two dogs on each tile might have a bone icon, paw icon for zoomies, or no icon. Once you’ve placed a tile, you must place a scoring token on one side of the tile.
There is one key caveat! Tiles must be placed with sides touching and cannot be diagonally connected. This placement rule and the design means that every single game will be different. If there are four people playing the park will also be super big!
Then you draw up to have two tiles in hand. If you place the Zoomies token, you’re allowed to place the second tile in your hand, but you don’t score on that one.
Packs are made immediately any time there is a dog on the board, but packs grow when tiles with the same breed are touching.
Scoring works in the following ways:
If you place the 1 token, that dog is now the leader of the pack and that player will receive 1 point for every dog in the pack.
If you place the bones token, you receive 2 points for every dog tile with bones in that pack.
The frens token is a little different. Once it is placed on a dog, that dog becomes the base for the friendship. Any dog of that breed touching the dog that the token points to is another 2 points.
Finally there’s the zoomies token! If you place the token on a dog, then at the end of the game every single dog that’s connected by the zoomies icon will be counted and scored. This is the only time the type of breed matching is not relevant.
In the example shown, there are 4 dogs with the paw icon in the group netting this player 10 points. (5 or more zoomied dogs gets the player 15 points.)
The verdict?
Zoomies is a deceptively simple but entertaining game for players of all ages with enough strategy to make it engaging without it being complicated.
You can try to build up zoomies groups or try to get bones in the packs (and if you’re like me, yell bone every time you make it happen) or you can strategize in other ways. Since there are other players though, you never know what might stop your pups in their tracks.
For an MSRP of $24.95, I definitely think it’s worth the price and could see myself buying it on my own.
You can pick up a copy from Fireside Games directly or your FLGS in September!
Images and review copy courtesy of OffDutyNinja
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