A copy of Bark Avenue was provided by Good Games Publishing for review purposes
The life of a dog walker seems like an envious one. Picking up playful pooches, giving them a job around the block in the sunshine, throwing a ball or a Frisbee at the park, then depositing them back at their home and collecting a paycheque. That said, I also know the struggle of starting and building a business, which is a ton of effort and stress. So instead of building a business for real, let’s talk about Bark Avenue, designed by Mackenzie Jungck and Jonathan Jungck, with art by April Borchelt and Chris Martinetti.
In Bark Avenue, you are an intrepid dog walker, ready to earn your day’s wage. Each turn, you’ll roll the dice, move the number of steps as your slowest dog, then preform an action. To end your turn, you’ll advance all the timers for your dogs, then the next dog walker takes their turn. After everyone has taken their turn, the game timer advances down the track and triggers an event.
The crux of the game is in the actions. You’ll pick up new pups, engage with their favourite activities, take their pictures, perhaps buy a coffee or a treat, then drop off dogs back at their home, once their walk timer has been satisfied. There’s plenty to do on every turn, but you’re restricted to only doing one action per round. Unless you cheat and drink a coffee, which gives you a boost and lets you take a second action during your turn.
When you drop off dogs, you have the opportunity to earn tips. Each dog has 3 criteria that can be accomplished during their walk, which is pooping, taking their picture, and engaging with their favourite activity. For each one of those criteria you accomplish, you earn an extra $2 tip. There’s also a subset of requirements along the left side of the board that will let you place out review stars, which will unlock more abilities for you during the game, and in the last 3 rounds, if you have no dogs to walk, you can take a review star from the left side of the board and place it on a coffee shop for some extra points.
The game plays over 16 rounds, at which time the scores are tallied and the person with the most cash is the winner!
Watching the how-to play video on Terradice’s website reveals that Bark Avenue was inspired by MacKenzie’s experiences as a dog walker in New York City, The reverence to the theme is obvious and unmistakable. If you like dogs, and Upper Manhattan, then I’m sure the theme will carry a lot of enjoyment for you. For the rest of us, there’s not much to write home about.
Bark Avenue is described as ‘gateway plus’, meaning it’s a hobby board game that’s approachable. It’s meant to be the next step from being relatively inexperienced, into the world of board games. And in that vein, I can appreciate Bark Avenue. One of the easiest ways to get non-boardgamers to sit down at my table, is to find a game with a theme that appeals directly to them. For someone who has an ‘I love doggos’ bumper sticker on their car, all the doggie portraits should be enough to engage their interest for an hour.
As a pickup and deliver game, I felt it was an exercise in tedium. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to say that, but hear me out. Bark Avenue is about as complex as Wingspan, but doesn’t offer any of the exciting combo building from that game. Instead, Bark Avenue is a game about optimization and efficiencies. Yes, it feels good to be walking three dogs at the same time, roll that golden poop to accomplish that task for all dogs, and align all of their favourite activities in one fell swoop. But all the dogs are functionally identical. Nothing really separates Beasley from Pixel aside from their home location and the amount of cash you’ll earn from their job.
Each game of Bark Avenue feels identical, even with the event cards shaking things up every round. The map is massive, with dozens of spaces to go, but nothing really differentiating them from each other. You won’t have a different experience playing east side vs. west side, other than the portraits of the dogs will change. Mechanically, there’s nothing really pulling you back for multiple plays. Once you’ve played a handful of rounds of the game, you’ve functionally experienced everything that Bark Avenue has to offer. There’s a sprinkling of set collection and other goals for you to chase, so your actions aren’t entirely rote, but it doesn’t have any real tension or excitement.
At the end of the day, Bark Avenue is a product for dog lovers. If your main joy is looking at portraits of happy doggies and imagining yourself at the helm of a dog walking venture, then Bark Avenue will provide you with entertainment for an evening. It’s not a game that I feel compelled to play again, nor would I recommend that anyone rush out and buy it. I actually think the cover does a pretty good job of signalling who this game is for. If your first thought at the sight of the cover and title was “Awe, cute!”, you’ll certainly dig this game. If you had any other thoughts or feelings than that, well, nothing I said above was going to change your mind.
