Take Dogs for a Walk and Score Points with Packs in Zoomies

Take a stroll through the park with all the best boys! Create packs, collect bones, and make the most out of the zoomies for a paw-some time.

Published by Fireside Games, Zoomies is a tile-placement game for 2-4 players, with a play time of 30 minutes.

Gameplay

Zoomies is a domino-style game played with tiles where each tile has two dogs on either side. These dogs come in five different breeds. Some dogs will also show a bone icon or a zoomies icon. At the start of the game, three tiles are randomly drawn and placed in the center of the table. Each player draws two tiles into their hands.

On a player’s turn, he always starts with two tiles in hand and must play one if possible. To play a tile, it must be placed so that at least one of its dogs is adjacent to a dog already on the table that is of the same breed. Then the player must, if possible, place one of his scoring tokens on one of the two dogs he just played. If a player cannot play a tile, he discards both tiles in his hand, draws a new hand, and tries to play again. If he cannot play a scoring token, he must discard one.

Each player starts the game with eight scoring tokens. These are double-sided with different scoring types on either side. The side a player chooses to place face-up indicates how that token will score at the end of the game. Points are calculated at the end, so the value of any token changes as the board evolves.

A group of one or more matching breeds that are connected to each other is called a pack. The leader scoring token will score one point for each dog in that pack. The bones token will score two points for each dog in that pack that has the bone icon.

The frens token is placed so that it is pointing at an adjacent dog that is a different breed from the dog it is placed on. This is the frens breed. It will score its player two points for each frens breed played adjacently to that token’s pack.

Finally, the zoomies token can only be played on a dog with the zoomies icon. The player then immediately places his second tile from his hand (although he doesn’t play a second scoring token). At the end of the game, this token will score an increasing number of points based on the number of dogs with the zoomie icon that are connected to the dog with this token. They do not all have to be the same breed.

In most cases, players cannot play the same scoring token to the same packs; however, it is possible that packs will become connected as new tiles are played, connecting identical scoring tokens, in which case the points are split between the players.

After players have placed all their score tokens, the game ends. Points are calculated and the player with the most points wins the game.

Review

Zoomies has an absolutely delightful theme, and a solid game to back it up. It’s quite easy to learn how to play, as the core domino-style mechanics are going to be familiar, but the scoring is fascinating and makes this a game to come back to repeatedly.

It has a great escalation, as starting out it is quite smooth and easy, with simple decisions, but as more and more tiles come out on the table it becomes a lot more challenging as the packs grow and evolve. Maybe you want to play a tile into that pack to make your score token there more valuable? But since you always have to add a new score token to the tile you just played, it’s maybe better to play a tile somewhere that will make the new token score more points? This balancing makes for interesting choices, especially as you also take into account other players’ tokens, trying not to set them up for a lot of points.

Players can also have different types of scoring tokens on the same pack, so one player might have a frens token on a pack where another player has a leader token. They then each have to try to grow the pack without giving too many extra points to the other person. This leads to some interesting, indirect player interaction.

The components are OK. It’s a very bright, colorful game. The dogs could have been a little cuter but they’re still fun to look at, and the tokens and tiles are fine but nothing special. A scoring pad would have been quite handy, though, to simplify the end-game score calculation.

Zoomies is a clever game that’s both simple to learn and has a lot of depth once you start playing. Calculating points at the end is a little slow, but everything else about this game is easy to learn and teach. Also dogs! You can’t go wrong with dogs.

Pros: Great scoring system, interesting player interaction, game escalates elegantly

Cons: No scoring pad to help simplify end game scoring, the components could have been a little fancier

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.