| Game | Dog's Life | Complexity | Low |
| Company | Eurogames/Descartes | Time | 90 mins |
| Setting | Modern Town | Players | 2-6 |
| Type | German | Rating | 7.5 |
Players take the role of stray dogs in a town and go about town scavanging for food, piddling on lamp-posts hunting for that coveted bone, and generally doing what dogs do. First dog to find 4 bones and successfully buries them in its "homebase" wins.
There are 6 different dogs to choose from, from the feasome boxer to the cute poodle. Each has different strengths and weaknesses. The boxer is fearsome in a fight, but with it is generally unsuccessful when begging for food. The poodle, on the other hand, will have no problems gettng stuff by begging at restaurants, but must be resourceful in avoiding the larger dogs, which are looking to relieve it of its hard-earned bones.
The components of the game are beautiful, consisting of a mounted, colorful cartoon mapboard of the town, 6 miniature dogs, each with a status card and its own set of playing cards, and various markers for piddle and searched trashcans.
Every turn, each dog is given a number of action points to perform its game actions. These include moving, scavaging from trashcans, begging for food at restaurants, collecting newspapers for delivery, piddling, drinking from fountains and fighting. A common deck of cards is used to determine random outcomes for most actions except moving actions. Different dogs are good at different activities, as shown by the different distribution of outcomes in the deck of cards for each dog.
Each dog has a card than shows its current state: the amount of food left in its stomach, the amount of piddle left in its bladder (seriously!) and the items (maximum of 2) it is carrying.
At the start of each turn, a dog decreases its amount of food. If it starts the turn with 0 food in its stomach, it is starving and exhausted, and brought automatically to the pound. Therefore, a good part of the dog's activities is spent looking for food to keep its energy level up.
A dog in the pound looks to escape from the pound as soon as possible. This is by flipping cards, 1 card for the first turn in the pound, 2 cards for the second and so on. A dog is automatically ejected from the pound by its fourth turn.
This is the core of the game. A dog has a number of activity points it can expend each turn, ranging from 6-8 depending of which dog is played. Dogs perform activities by expending these activity points.
Moving is done by expanding 1 action point and moving your dog 1 space. Simple. A dog may not move into a space containing another dog or the dogcatcher truck. If a dog moves into a space containing a piddle except its own, it must stop and end its turn.
Scavaging from trashcan is done by expending 1 action point. Food and bones may be discovered at trashcans, but once searched, trashcans are marked and may not be searched again until replenished again when 15 trashcans are searched.
Begging for food is done at one of the numerous restaurants on the map. Dogs at restaurants beg by expending 1 action point and may receive bones, food or nothing, randomly determined by flipping a card.
Collecting newspapers is done at the newspaper stand in the middle of the map and spending 1 action point. Collected newspapers must be delivered to a secret random location marked on the reverse of the chit. This location is only revealed to players whose dog has picked up the newspaper, adding a further random element to the game. When the newspaper is successfully delivered, the dog receives a reward randomly determined by flipping a card.
Drinking can be done only in spaces containing fountains, and costs 1 action point. Drinking allows the dog to store 1 unit of piddle in its bladder (up to a maximum of 2).
Piddling. A dog may spend an action point at a lamp-post and piddle there. Of course it mush have stored some piddle in its bladder by drinking from a fountain first. Its piddle will cause another dog entering the space to stop to sniff and expend the remainder of its turn. A nasty tactic, in more ways than one.
Fighting. A dog may choose to fight another dog it is adjacent to by spending an action. Both players flip a card and see the number of claws depicted on the card (ranges from 1 to 3, different distribution for different dogs.) Dog with the higher score wins. Loser is injured, drops whatever items it is carrying and is sent to the pound to recuperate. Dropped items can be picked up by another dog in the same space spending 1 action point.
As his last action for the turn, a player rolls the die and moves the dogcatcher truck the exact number of spaces. The truck may only move forward, and turn at junctions. Any dog in the ending space of the truck is automatically captured and sent to the pound. Any dog in an adjacent space has to flip a card to see it it is captured. Captured dogs drop any items they are carrying, making the dog with that juicy bone a prime target.
From the number of "flip a card" descriptions above you can probably deduce that this game has a huge random element in it. However, I feel this is not really a drawback, as the game does not necessarily swing wildly on any 1 particular card draw, unless it is a very close game.
I have only played this once, so opinions are still preliminary. One could of course add mechanics to spice up the game and make it more analytical, but I feel this detracts from the simple funny theme of the game.
A cute and colourful game. Good to introduce non-gamers to the hobby, but may not hold the interest of hard-core gamers.