On the 20th June 2023, we’ll be bringing the first boxed expansion for Dog Park to Kickstarter. In Dog Park: New Tricks, there are more dogs to walk - including rescues! - more places in the park to explore, and a new trainer who can teach pups exciting new skills to combine with their existing abilities.
This post will be the first in a series of designer diaries that will give a peak behind the curtain to our design process and the game itself. In this first instalment, I am going to share our design intentions for New Tricks and what we hope the expansion will bring to the base game.
Enriching Engine Building
One of our favourite mechanisms in the Dog Park base game is the iterative, ever-adapting engine that players can build each walk with their dogs’ abilities. We knew when developing New Tricks, that we wanted to add another dimension to this element. Enter Trick cards! These cards are shuffled at the beginning of the game and randomly attributed to one of each breed category.
Players have an expanded opportunity to build impactful engines
For the duration of the game, that breed group can then learn their assigned trick. Essentially, tricks act as second abilities for any dog and consequently players have an expanded opportunity to build impactful engines.
Some of the New Tricks dog cards also feature a new ability trigger point - ‘When performing aTRICKwith this dog’ - which offers another chance to generate resources, bank reputation, and perform interesting actions.
New Tricks dog cards also feature a new ability trigger point - ‘When performing a TRICK with this dog’
As Tricks can be performed in a couple of phases in the round structure, this new trigger point poses a strategic question for all players: how will you use Tricks and Trick-based abilities to advantage your play?
Create Extra Competition (with more representation for multi-breeds)
We’re super proud that the base Dog Park game offers a chilled out, companionable experience. However with this first boxed expansion we wanted to engineer extra layers of strategy to encourage further (friendly!) competition and the Multi-breed dogs really throws the cat among the pigeons (or perhaps the dog among the tennis balls). The majority of Multi-breed dogs represent two breed categories, which means they can be super valuable for Breed Expert scoring and Trick training as Multi-breed dogs can learn the Trick assigned to both of their breed categories.
The Multi-breed dogs really throws the cat among the pigeons (or perhaps the dog among the tennis balls)
As such, the competition in the Recruitment phase has the potential to be ramped up - but of course players still need to think tactically about how much Reputation they are willing to stake in order to bring any dog into their Kennel.
After we Kickstarted and published Dog Park we also knew that the addition of the Multi-breed dogs was a must. New Tricks represents mixed breeds, crossbreeds, rescues, and everything in between and we’re excited that even more players will see their favourite dog represented in the game.
We’re excited that even more players will see their favourite dog represented in the game.
This expansion also includes the rules and components to add a fifth player to Dog Park, which can be played with or without the New Tricks content. Of course another player in the Park means more competition across every element of the game.
Ratchet Up the Crunch
Jack and I believe that boxed expansions should add more complexity to a game - these are our favourite expansions to buy and play and so we wanted to design in this style for New Tricks. We also know that there are plenty of dedicated board game hobbyists that enjoy Dog Park with more casual players, but are also looking to ratchet up the challenge for themselves.
New Tricks offers plenty of crunch and new layers of strategy to get stuck into. As I’ve touched upon above, the Trick cards have a transcendent effect across the game: they influence Recruitment decisions; offer enhanced scoring choices; add a new dimension to the roundly engine building; and give dogs extra value, which impacts on Swap decisions.
New Tricks offers plenty of crunch and new layers of strategy to get stuck into.
The variation introduced by the Multi-breed dogs also ensures the Breed Expert awards are fluid and competitive throughout the game. Players have to keep their eye on the Kennels of their opponents throughout and this, combined with the old and new strategies of Dog Park, is a satisfyingly demanding task!
Finally - and this is something that I’ll cover in more detail in a future post - the Park is evolving with the addition of Super Locations. These powerful sites offer potentially lucrative bonuses to those who visit. But with only two available per round - and split across the back half of the Park - players have a big decision to make: which, if either, Super Location should they choose to visit?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first look into the game and our design intentions for New Tricks. Look out for weekly designer diaries from me, which will be published on our website first and then on the New Tricks Board Game Geek page, in the leadup to the Kickstarter campaign launching on the 20th June.
We’d love to have you with us for the campaign - in which we’ll be offering backers the chance to secure the Collector’s Edition, plus lots more Kickstarter goodies to be revealed - and you can sign up to be notified of the launch here.
Please note all photographs in this article feature a prototype copy of New Tricks which is liable to change.
