REVIEW

Dobble: Star Wars Review

by Luke Walsh, December 27th, 2016

Star Wars is a pretty well known universe, even for those not too engrossed in the lore as many different people will be able to recognise a lightsaber or chewbacca but can an ordinary person tell the difference between a X-Wing and Y-Wing or who pilots what ship?

Dobble is also known in America as Spot It! and when you break it down to basics, really is just matching pairs. Every good card game should be simple to explain and not have you sifting through a how-to booklet just to get started, Dobble is just that sort of game. You really only need to know, “match stuff that looks the same” and you are good to go. There are 55 cards in the tin and each disc consists of eight different images on them from the Star Wars franchise. This differs from the original game which usually has images such as hearts, hands, question marks and other fairly common items. Putting the cards in a pile you’ll then have to find the one and only image which corresponds to another image on another card. This is where the game can become quite tricky as your goal to win is to match as many items as possible, trying to overcome the other visual noise on the cards.

To keep things interesting, there are a few different ‘game modes’ you can play with Star Wars Dobble but all of them are rooted from the same simple concept of matching pairs. In most of the game modes you will be playing a version of snap, turning over a card, spotting the matching pair, shouting it out and then moving onto the next cards. Some games you will be taking cards from the centre of the game area while others will be discarding them to the centre. Whatever the game mode you play, it will be just as crazy as the last, having to quickly sift through the different images against other players is understandably blood pumping tension. The different game modes help keep things a little different and don’t allow players to get too used to the images and the style of play to become a master at matching.

Star Wars Dobble is like playing a game of snap but with the added complexity of trying to remember what each thing is on the different playing cards. It can be great to play with Star Wars veterans as they try to pretend they are a master of the lore, only to forget what an AT-AT is in the heat of the moment. However, this is where Star Wars Dobble does become quite a niche product as the original product Dobble has every day items you need to match which has a much lower barrier of entry. If you are not a fan of the series or even if you are but don’t know or remember much from the universe, it can quickly become quite one-sided when there a challenger who is a Jedi by religion.

Now there is some flexibility depending on how you want to play. You could have when you allow the lowly cannon fodder of Stormtroopers on your side to just say X-Wing when in fact it’s a TIE Fighter as they got a close as they could (better than spaceship) without you having to be completely Darth Vader and force crush their ego down a couple pegs. Playing with complete Star Wars nerds is when the game really shines and players are on equal footing with the rules are jacked up to the max. It becomes a game of speed but precision and fast thinking knowledge, more so when the images can sometimes be a little hard to dicher at a quick glance.

Star Wars Dobble was much more fast action packed fun than I thought it would be. As someone who liked Star Wars but is by no means a master of the lore, backstory and characters I had fun trying to remember what each visual cue on the cards were. This was proved much harder than I had thought when up against people who know much more about the franchise. Playing it with people more on my level made the game “easier” as there was more time to match but it does bring the adrenaline down a little when you all have a lot of time to find the connecting images. It’s not a game you will play for hours on end Christmas day but due to it being easy to just pick up and play, there is always time for quick sessions and can be a lot of fun.