Puppies or Poop, a Darling Card Game Review

Bert
Oct 14
3 min read

Its a crisp fall morning and you are talking a walk only to find that the cute neighborhood dogs have left you a little something tucked under the leaves. Is it Puppies or Poop? This small box card based game designed by Seppy Yoon (Conquest Princess) is available this October from Fight in a Box games. Now on to the darling card game review!

Setup

This is a small box card game so setup is super easy. Depending on player count you remove some cards to optimize game play. After that you shuffle the remaining cards and establish the first part of the play area by creating a 2x2 grid of face up cards. Each player then gets a 3 card hand. That all there is to setup.

The cards for this game are square cards and have lots of cute puppies on a lot of them and also poop there is poop. There are three types of cards puppies, poop and special cards. The first two are self explanatory, The other cards do things like lose a turn, take an extra turn or the fabled double dookie.

It is very important to remember what cards you played where on the table. This is a memory game after all.

Game Play

The game is broken up into 2 phases Morning and Evening. The morning phase has players taking two actions on their turn plop and swap. To plop a player takes a card off of the draw pile and puts it face up orthogonality adjacent to the cards already on the table. If its the first turn then adjacent to the 2x2 starting grid. The only restriction is that the cards cannot exceed a 5x5 or 4x4 (in a two player game). The next action is the swap, to preform the swap players will swap a card from their hand with a face up card from the grid. The player will be playing the card face down. It is very important to remember what cards you played where on the table. This is a memory game after all.

Players will keep plopping and swapping until the draw pile has run out. Then players will just do swaps until there are no more face up cards. At this point the game shifts to the Evening phase. This is the part where remembering the cards you played will come in handy. Players will take turns revealing one card from the grid and hoping they didn't step in it. If a player reveals 3 poops then they are out. Last person standing wins. If a player reveals a puppy then they can keep it and admire that cute puppy. If a special card is revealed then they will preform the action as listed in the rule sheet.

Thoughts

Puppies or Poop was an instant hit at our house, our 5 year old picked it up right away and wanted to keep playing it. I think this game is good at 2 players and it really shines at three and four players. When playing with 3 and four players there is a lot more unknown information on the board and it makes the game more challenging. The two player version has a more strategic feel too it. Either way players can enjoy trying to bluff the others at any player count. This beautiful light fall themed game is perfect for to bring with you on the go due to its size and quick game play.

Get over to Fight in a Box and get yourself a copy of this fun and darling game. Its simple and fun. If you enjoy some light bluffing and memory this is a great fit for you. If you like cute puppies but not their poops this game is for you too! I hopeyou have as much fun as we did with Puppies or Poop.

Players: 2-4

Year Published: 2025

Recommended Ages: 14+

Time to Play: 10 minutes