Sanity Test for Dogs In The Yard

Good. The bullet-point outline structure is functional. Rather than discussing final scoring in tile placement, should refer players to the Ending the Game section.

Thin. Why are we fencing dogs, where do they come from, what's going ON here? Escape from a pound, raining dogs, kennel club get out of hand?

Ideally, there would be a section of theme: someone let the dogs out - we must fence, feed and water them!; then a section on how we do this: draw a tile, place a tile, anything else - try to fence the most dogs, being careful that they have food and water. These can be one section, but both of these points should be addressed: what are we doing, and, briefly, how are we doing it. Second to third person shift ("you" to "they") is grammatically incorrect & confusing. When the game ends and how I win it should also be mentioned here.

These sound self-explanatory, but pictures are nice. Listing the number of each is good; is it also indicated on the tile? Mathy types like to know during play without consulting rules. 'Six sets of five dogs tags each, in different colors' would be more clear.

Not needed.

Should tell me to separate the score tiles BEFORE telling me to shuffle ALL the tiles together. Grammatically, they would constitute a 'they' not an "it', unless referred to as 'the score track'.

Not needed.

The Goal section here would be better off as an overview, right after the introduction. What do I do to score points? Bullet point in section 5 should be in parentheses to match the earlier sections. Section 4 is confusing: it implies the player who just completed the yard scores for claimed dogs; the section on scoring yards does not clarify this enough. Sections 3 & 4 could be combined: 'If by placing the tile a fence is completed, the yard thus formed and the claimed dogs in it are immediately scored. (See the “Completing Yards” section below).' This section, "there must be at least an equal amount of both food and water tiles as there are dogs when the yard is completed" is confusing. 'There must be at least one food tile and one water tile per dog in the yard when the yard is completed, or no dogs score' would be more clear. It looks like there's something wrong with figures 2.1 & 2.2. The bottom tiles should be switched, yes?, so that the straight fence tile shown alters the yard? As is, it looks like tiles have been moved, not played on top of existing tiles. TREATS are a problem. First Treat option would be simpler if it started with the requirement: 'If you have claimed a dog, you may switch its tag with the tag of any other player's claimed dog on the board.' If I must spend a treat before I draw, that means I must spend it the turn I draw it or the next turn, yes? I don't see a provision for passing a turn. Where is a spent treat placed? On the board as a regular tile? Do they count towards feeding the dogs? How would I have two of them to spend? If they are given to the 'victim' when I switch dog tags, that would let me get more than one, but the rules do not say this happens. I don't understand the second section, on defense, at all. How do I use treats to do this? Should mention under toys that extra points are NOT scored if the dogs do not have enough food & water to score.

The extant diagrams look good, though, as noted, I think one is incorrect. Diagrams showing the scoring of a complete yard or two, one with enough food/water and one without, would help. The claiming mechanism could also be clarified using these diagrams. I assume you do not need to have properly fed your dogs to claim a yard, though the rules do not specify.

No tie-breaker.

I am not sure how treats work. Appropriate diagrams would help, but the rules as written seem to contradict the main 'draw-a-tile, play-a-tile' system.

Generally. Minor sentence-structure issues.

Good tag line, but doesn't say much about game-play. Am I placing tiles, moving dog tokens, what? The hand seems distracting - is this a dexterity game?

BIG hand is distracting. Game pieces look good.

Clean but a bit plain.

Lack of depth of focus in some of the pictures does not show the pieces as well as could be done. Close-ups of groups of the various types, all in focus, would show them off better. I don't get a good feel for how many pieces there are - a shot of a finished game would do this. Hand is good for scale, but shouldn't be in more than one shot.

Thin. Why should I buy THIS game? What's going on? Where's the fun? Typo: "building" should be 'build'.

No video!