Designed by Gael de Robien, The Last Doge is a highly interactive exploration game for 2-5 players set in a post-apocalyptic Venice. Art is by Martin Mottet and the game is being published by Don’t Panic Games.
The Last Doge is played using a modular board made up of initially face-down location tiles. These are all numbered 2-7, and the number on these location tiles also represents the number of tiles that bear that number: so there are seven #7 tiles, six #6, five #5, etc. Among the actions you take on your turn will be to move your avatar to look at face-down tiles (usually two, but more if the ties you peek at have the same number). You flip one of the tiles face up but leave your avatar on a face-down tile. You’ll be trying to collect trophies and artifacts, both of which are worth victory points (VP).
There’s a treasure tile in the centre but players don’t know what number tile is face down beneath it. The treasure tile is worth four trophies (VP) but to claim them you’ll need to deduce or successfully guess the number on that tile. Everyone gets just one guess per game, and if you guess and get it wrong then you’ll have narrowed the choices for opponents… And there’s more. When a player wins the treasure tile, or when all the players have guessed unsuccessfully at the number of the location, it triggers a change-of-pace end game...
The eponymous Last Doge, it seems, is an unseen automaton guarding the city. When the end game is triggered, the location tiles are flipped so that all are face down and the game becomes a race to escape by moving from tile to tile in numerical order. Remembering the position of the location tiles is critical here: starting with 2, you can keep moving to the next numbered location until you reach safety at a location 7 tile. If you make a wrong choice (for example, by turning over a #5 tile when the next in sequence is #3), your turn ends and you must discard one of the cards in your hand. The cards with which you end the game are worth victory points but if, in your escape, you lose them all then your end-game score is zero regardless of what trophies and artifacts you’ve collected in the first part of the game.
The Last Doge is an intriguing memory and deduction game but it’s also a game with a high level of ‘take that’ player interaction. You don’t just score trophies from collecting them; you also collect them when you dish out damage to an opponent. This is also then a tactical hand management game where you’ll be using cards and tile reveals to attack other players to cause them damage and to steal their trophies. You might well describe this as a Doge eat Doge game :-)
Don’t Panic Games are bringing The Last Doge to Kickstarter on 10 January. Click here to check it out.