Gamehelpzoomies

Overview

You are dog walkers at the park. On your turn you add a dog tile to the park, matching at least one breed, and then place one of your scoring tokens on that tile. Tokens score at the end of the game, so a token played early can grow much bigger as more dogs join it.

The game ends when every player has used all 8 tokens, so each player takes 8 turns. The highest score wins.

Components

• 50 dog tiles. Each tile shows 2 dogs. There are 5 breeds: Chihuahua, Poodle, Beagle, Husky and Greyhound.
  • One dog on every tile has a Bone icon.
  • Some tiles also have one dog with the Zoomies icon (a running dog with a paw print).
• 8 tokens per player, each double-sided. You choose the side when you place it.
  • 4 square tokens: Bones or Frens.
  • 4 circular tokens: Leader or Zoomies.

Setup

• 3 random tiles start face up in the middle of the park. They do not need to match.
• Each player gets a hand of 2 tiles, hidden from the others.

Packs and Zoomies groups

• A Pack is a group of dogs of the same breed that touch side to side. A single dog is a Pack of 1. Two Packs of the same breed that do not touch are separate Packs.
• A Zoomies group is a group of dogs with the Zoomies icon that touch side to side. Unlike a Pack, a Zoomies group can mix breeds.
• Diagonal never counts as touching.

On your turn

1. Place a dog tile

• Place 1 tile from your hand so that at least one side touches a tile already in the park. No diagonal connections.
• At least one of your dogs must touch a dog of the same breed. You do not have to match both.
• If you can play a tile, you must. If neither of your tiles fits anywhere, you discard both, draw 2 new tiles and play one of those.

2. Place a scoring token

• You must place a token on the tile you just played.
• A Pack can hold only one Leader token and only one Bones token.
• If you cannot place any token, you must discard one. A discarded token scores 0.

3. Draw up

• You may discard the tile left in your hand.
• Draw back up to 2 tiles. Play passes to the left.

The four tokens

Leader (circular)

• Place it on any dog.
• Scores 1 point for each dog in that Pack.

Bones (square)

• Place it on any dog. That dog does not need a Bone icon.
• Scores 2 points for each Bone icon in that Pack.

Frens (square)

• Place it on a dog with its arrow pointing at a touching dog of a different breed.
• The Pack under the token is the Base Pack. It is now Frens with the breed the arrow points at.
• Scores 2 points for each side where a dog in the Base Pack touches a dog of the Frens breed. One dog can touch on more than one side, and each side counts.
• A Base Pack can hold more than one Frens token if their arrows point at different breeds.

Zoomies (circular)

• Place it on a dog with the Zoomies icon.
• Then immediately place the other tile in your hand anywhere legal. No token goes on that second tile.
• Scores by the number of Zoomies dogs in the group: 1 dog = 1, 2 = 3, 3 = 6, 4 = 10, 5 = 15 (the maximum).
• A Zoomies token cannot be added to a Zoomies group that already has one.

Shared Packs and groups

Later tiles can join two separate Packs or Zoomies groups into one. If both already held the same kind of token, those tokens now split the points evenly, rounded down. This happens when:

• two Leader tokens, or two Bones tokens, end up in the same Pack;
• two Frens tokens share the same Base Pack and point at the same breed;
• two Zoomies tokens end up in the same Zoomies group.

End of the game

• The game ends when every player has placed or discarded all 8 of their tokens.
• Each player adds up the points of their placed tokens.
• Tie-break: the player with the highest-scoring single token wins. If still tied, the win is shared.

On Board Game Arena

• Scores update live. The score beside each player's name is what their tokens would be worth if the game ended now. It can go up or down on any turn, including other players' turns, as Packs grow, join and split. Final scores are counted the same way.
• The game log explains every change. Each turn gets a one-line summary, plus a line for each other player whose score moved because of it, and a notice when Packs or Zoomies groups join and their tokens start to split.
• The last tile played glows briefly for everyone as the next turn begins.
• Undo: you can take back your whole turn until you draw.
• Running out of tiles: if the draw pile runs out, the discarded tiles are shuffled to form a new one.
• Hover over a tile or token for its details.