Publisher: Good Games Publishing
Player Count: 1-5 Players
Game Length: 60 Minutes
Complexity 2/5

As a competitive New York City dog walker, building an efficient business is the key to success. But when your business involves unpredictable 4-legged canines—each with their own unique preferences and personalities—you’ll often have to juggle the needs of the pets while still trying to stay on schedule in this thematically bright and family friendly board game. 

In Bark Avenue, you’ll be walking a variety of real-life dog breeds around the blocks of New York City, picking them up, giving them plenty of exercise and fun before dropping them back home. You’ll need to keep plenty of dog treats on hand and maybe a coffee or 2 to keep up with these energized pooches. Do a good job and you’ll receive great reviews as you watch your business grow and seek to become the most prestigious dog walker in NYC.

ON YOUR TURN

Bark Avenue is really about the dogs. There are 81 unique and beautifully illustrated dog breed cards in the game. While I don’t want to downplay the strategy, the real joy of the game will come from your appreciation of the dogs and their unique traits.

On your turn, you’ll be picking up dogs across the city. Each available dog has a home address where you’ll meet it. Once a dog is in your care, you’ll move across a map of New York City that’s based on real world locations.

Each dog has its own “speed” or movement available per turn as well as the length (or number of turns) it will need to be walked. Certain dogs will only get along with specific sized dogs and some dogs will want to just walk alone. There are ways to mitigate these challenges, but you’ll typically need to incorporate careful planning to ensure any dogs walked together will play nice.

While each dog will earn you a specific amount of money, garnering tips can certainly help out your cause. Owners love it when you take photos of the dogs, cater directly to the dogs needs (be it playing ball, visiting fire hydrants or splashing in water). This is also the only game I’ve ever played that rewards you for your dog taking a poop.

You’ll need to plan each dog’s journey so you’ll be able to drop it off at the right time. Miss your return appointment and you forgo tips and positive reviews.

The game plays over 17 turns, each turn introducing an event, change in the rules or modifying the available dogs. As your business rating increases, you’ll have access to bonuses such as extra dog treats or the ability to walk more dogs at once. In the end, the player with the most money is the winner.

ARTWORK & COMPONENTS

As I mentioned previously, the dog artwork is bright and cheery. The game’s 81 unique dogs are all based on real-life foster dogs across the United States. The dog illustrations are fun and really well done and will definitely appeal to dog fanatics. Additionally, the game board showcasing a stylizing layout of New York City helps further immerse you in the theme.

The game delivers what you’d expect from a high quality production. The rulebook does a fantastic job explaining the game and referencing the game’s more detailed aspects.

PROS & CONS

➕ Vibrant, high quality artwork

➕ Fun, friendly theme

➕ Despite a bit of a learning curve with the iconography and some of the game’s cards, I was pleased with how easy the game was to learn.

➕ Easy to teach

➕ Theme matched well with the turn actions

 

➖ Turns sometimes felt overly simple and little ho-hum

➖ Efficiency puzzle where choices never felt too challenging leaving me a bit underwhelmed by the overall mechanics

WHY WOULD YOU LIKE THIS GAME?

There is no mystery here, this is a game for dog lovers. I’ve got a number of dog lovers in my family and we’ve played every dog game you can get your hands on. Taking everything into consideration, this is one of the best dog-themed implementations I’ve played. The developers certainly knew where they were going and did a great job catering to a pet-friendly audience.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS GAME?

I sound like a broken record, but the variety of dogs in the game is truly the best part. They’re all so bright, friendly and charming, it completely transcends the entire experience.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Bark Avenue is a rare game where the charm coming from the theme saves what could have been a somewhat lackluster experience. The actual actions of moving around the board and grabbing bonuses often felt like I was repeatedly moving in a circle. But that’s really the life of a dog walker and finding a puddle for Nova, my Teacup Pomeranian, to splash in or walking through the park to play frisbee with Nico, a Bernice Mountain Dog, brought the game to life. The colors and the dogs and location provides a really friendly and fun thematic experience even if you’re not met with the most thoughtful or engaging decisions.

That being said, I think Bark Avenue does a nice job bringing a slightly more challenging experience to a genre of board games that are typically very light and simple. To be truly effective in the game, you really need to engage the planning and it will sometimes require a little thought to make sure you’re running your dog business smoothly. It’s certainly not overly complicated for anyone over age 10, but it will require strategy. In the end, I think many are going to find a sweet spot in the game’s overall experience.

I was pleasantly surprised by Bark Avenue and the wonderful theme really won me over. It seems to be flying under the radar a bit and that may be due to so many similar themed games hitting the market, but Bark Avenue definitely has a lot of quality, standout points. This may be the best dog-themed game I’ve played.