Players 3-5
Time 90 minutes
Designer ?
Publisher QED Games
Times Played 1 (five player)

Initial Impression

Forget the relatively idyllic picture presented by Settlers Of Catan: where man lives in harmony with the environment, extracting the material he needs to build his towns from an abundant and ever replenishing Mother Nature. Dog Eat Dog shows what happens when you leave the paradise of this bucolic German community for the bright lights of the real world.

This story is a little closer to home. Extract what you need, and then extract some more. Squeeze nature’s pips until she keels over from the exhaust fumes. And as for the wildlife…well, what are zoos for anyway?

Dog Eat Dog is a game of corporate plunder. Each player represents the chief executive of a division of Rinky Dink Inc., a vast conglomerate devoted to greed. To win, you must rip out raw materials from a vast nature reserve, sidestep and corrupt any ecologically friendly bureaucrats and politicians along the way, trade materials with other players and cut as many deals as you can, manufacture some vastly overpriced end products while ripping off your own workforce and then embezzle as much income as possible into your Swiss bank account. As the game moves along, the countryside wilts under the pressure of this binge of manufacturing. The lush green valleys, verdant forests and breathtaking mountains are gradually suffocated by urban sprawl and pollution.

The game has lovely bits. The artwork throughout is both uniform and appealing, although some of the counters and cards are a bit on the flimsy side. The rules are straightforward, although they are unnecessarily long due to the frequent injection of humorous asides exhorting the players to worship the principles of Gordon Gekko.

This cynical humour is present throughout the game, not just in the rules but also in the artwork and cards. This can be a dangerous ploy, as humour can be so individual as to be almost solitary. For me at least, the Dog Eat Dog humour works well and adds to the game experience. Others may disagree.

So it’s all a bit of a laugh then?

Well, yes and no.

The game is an odd combination of stylish and novel bodywork driven by a traditional and underpowered ‘roll the dice and move around the board’ engine.

First the stylish and novel bit – the depiction of Mother Nature. Each player will control up to two of the 16 nature squares in the middle of the board. These squares contain the raw materials the players need to manufacture the end products that generate the real cash. So far so Settlers. In this case, however, there are no dice involved to determine production. Each square can produce three raw materials, not necessarily different, such as oil, timber, chemicals, iron etc. In his turn, the player can extract one raw material from each of the squares he owns without harming the environment. Additionally, he does not have to have such regard for future generations and can choose to wreck the square by going for the maximum extraction option and taking two or three raw materials at the same time.

While this boosts a player’s holdings in raw materials, it also degrades the nature square. In game terms this replaces the green and pleasant square with an overlay much more dark and Satanic. The first time this happens, the new overlay will still produce raw materials (although not necessarily the same ones as its predecessor). The second time it happens, the extraction will blast the square completely, converting it into a wasteland of dead earth and shopping centres.

This mechanism works extremely well. It would certainly make for an interesting Settlers variant – and I would not be surprised to see this happen – and it is helped by some excellent artwork on both the board and the overlays which give a graphic account of how the ecological nightmare unfolds. It also presents each player with some interesting timing decisions on when to go for sustainable production and when to rape the countryside.

There are other aspects to the game which I think work well. The workforce is one. A set of counters portray a division’s proles. Each counter requires upkeep in terms of wages, but the more workers you have, the more extraction and manufacturing you can do in a turn. Also, there is a limited total labour force. This can certainly restrict options in the five or six player game and will make it important to build up the number of workers you employ before the central pool is exhausted.

The role of corrupt officials is also a well thought out feature. These are represented by cards which will restrict a player’s actions when they appear. Usually by preventing the extraction of more than one raw material from a nature square. The effect of these cards can be avoided by bribing the official, using a simple mechanism, which, if successful, brings the card into a player’s hand, where he can impose the same restrictions on anybody else (while also exposing the official to counter-bribes from the intended victim).

Other sides to the game such as embezzling, pollution, bankruptcy and taxation are also handled effectively, with no single mechanism being overly complex and with all of them sitting together well. There is also some diversity between the various divisions represented by the players, either in the type of product they manufacture or, in the case of one, by introducing a recycling product which uses other players’ pollution as a raw material. In this case in particular, a completely different game strategy is involved. There is also a fair bit of scope for negotiation, trading and back-stabbing – something which is actively encouraged in the rules – which should appeal to the more Machiavellian among you.

So much for the good. Now for the bad (the excellent artwork has negated the ugly). Many of the critical aspects of the game such as taxation, bidding for new nature squares and generating corrupt officials and random events, are triggered by the Monopoly-like movement track around the outside of the board. In addition, all the other squares list some sort of bonus or penalty to the moving player. Some of these are neutral, some are relatively piddling in effect, but some are real buggers or boons, and can turn a game. One square, for example, grants an extra turn, which can lead to a double whammy of extraction and manufacturing. Since this is essentially a race from relatively equal positions, if one player manages to land on this square twice in a game, a significant advantage is gained over any player who has not been so lucky. Equally, a player who whizzes around the board fast enough to be the first to get hold of a second nature square (you start with only one) will also get a leg up in the extraction race. Since this will usually be the person who also landed on the move again square, you can see the problem.

Obviously, in a game of interaction, there is scope for the trailing players to cooperate and gang up on the perceived leaders. I suspect, however, that there are not enough weapons available to pull them back far enough to totally counteract a good spell of dice rolling.

It seems a pity that when a game has gone so far to create mechanisms which do not rely on luck, it also has a key device which is totally luck-dependent.

If this was a quick-playing game, this would not be quite such a problem. Who gives a flyer if the dice have gone against you – if it has been a fun and quick experience you can always play again (or play something else). Unfortunately, and this is my other major complaint, this is not a short game. Whoever estimated the playing time as 90 minutes must have access to a pretty impressive range of pharmaceuticals. With five players, even allowing for first time play, this game drags. We took three hours, and even then we had to take a short cut to decide the winner.

Unlike other games, such as La Citta, where turns are broken down into phases which guarantees that no-one has to wait too long before doing something, in Dog Eat Dog each player takes all actions at once. Result: there is a lot of downtime between turns. While this might be mitigated a little by the unrestricted dealing that can go on between all players, it is not enough.

Some of these problems could be eased by reducing the winning target (although this would increase the luck factor and make it difficult for the recycling player to win) but I doubt it would increase the enjoyment of the game.

So, a lot of nice ideas, some of which are sure to crop up in other games; some lovely graphics; a clever theme. But it is too long and, for me at least, ruined by the roll two dice and move element. This is not a terrible game, but neither does it get the accolade of flawed masterpiece.

Obviously, after only one playing, I am probably missing a lot and would get much more out of it if I played it more often. Unfortunately, I cannot see it hitting the table again, so my lasting impression will probably rely on this one playing experience.

Rating 6