Go Viral with Adorable Dog Photos in Dogtag

Selfies, fashion, and food! Be a social media hound in this light card game full of doggy cuteness.

Dogtag, originally funded through Kickstarter, is a light set collection card game with a very cute theme, plenty of player interaction, and a fun sense of humor.

Gameplay

The deck is shuffled and five cards are dealt to each player. The achievement deck is also shuffled. In a two-player game, five achievements are placed face up on the table, otherwise its six. The first player to claim three achievement cards wins. In a two-player game, you do not replace an achievement card after one has been claimed. In a three-to-five player game, you do not replace the first three that are claimed, but start drawing new ones once there are only three left on the table.

On your turn there are two phases. Phase one is the open face draw. You draw a card and if it is a picture, you may either discard it or place it in front of you in your picture board area. You are only allowed to have five pictures in your picture board area. If you ever place a sixth card there, you must discard one. If you draw an action card, you choose an opponent to perform the action (the action will always be detrimental to you during this phase, such as allowing an opponent to steal a card from your hand or discarding a comment card on one of your photos).

Next is the posting phase. You draw two cards into your hand and then may take three actions. Actions include playing a picture card to your picture board, playing an action card, or discarding cards from your picture board in order to claim an achievement.

When one of your picture cards gets five comments on it, it has ‘gone viral’. When this happens you immediately draw two cards. However, you must always discard down to five cards in hand at the end of your turn.

Action card abilities include things such as comment cards, which are attached to a picture until that picture is discarded, or the ability to discard one of the unclaimed achievement cards and draw a new one in its place. You may play a flag ability card to block an action played against you on another player’s turn (you may not use it to block an action during an open face draw phase).

Picture cards come in one of five categories. Each achievement card says exactly how many cards you need to discard, and in which categories, in order to claim it. Some may require you to discard a certain number of cards, along with a certain number of comments attached to each. Each achievement also lists a special ability, some of which are performed as soon as you claim the card, while others are activated later.

Review

Dogtag is a relatively simple set collection card game. It’s easy enough to teach to appeal to a wider audience, but the amount of information on display keeps it interesting. You know the achievements on offer and you can see what photo cards players already have on the table. This allows you to use your action cards effectively, and also decide which achievements you yourself should work towards.

Turns are fast. The open face draw phase is a fun twist, where you’ll never know if it will hurt or harm you. There’s lots of player interaction and there is plenty of competition over each achievement card, with players frequently competing over the same ones, particularly during the later rounds of the game.

There is enough 'take that' in Dogtag that it’s better at three or more players, where you can spread around the negative cards. Also, the open draw phase of each turn plays more interestingly when you have multiple players to choose from.

The game’s theme is adorable and the artwork is really imaginative, with unique pictures on each card along with fun flavor text. It is fun to play the game just to see what the next card will be. The quality of the cards themselves is nice, but there are some rule inconsistencies between what it says on a couple of action cards and what it says in the rulebook.

Dogtag is quite light. It’s a card game that’s got enough going on to keep you interested in seeing the winner, but also lends itself to a casual setting and chatting with friends. There’s plenty of back and forth interaction between the players, an extremely cute theme, and enough interesting ideas and choices to keep players feeling engaged.

Pros: Cute theme and artwork, lots of open information

Cons: Too much 'take that' with two players, rule inconsistencies