Most people who know me wouldn’t guess that I’m a board game nerd. Boards games and me— we go together like dogs and Frisbees. So when Peaceable Kingdom asked me to design the latest creation by Susan McKinley Ross— she's the inventor of Qwirkle, one of my family’s favorite games— my tail wagged with excitement.

The game's concept started off as a straight-forward cooperative dice game, and then morphed into a puppy-themed challenge to sniff out the right bone tiles and reveal the phrase L-U-C-K-Y Dogs before all the players' dice are sent to the doghouse.

Adorable illustrations by my fellow squirrel-chaser Jim Paillot and a punchy title treatment by yours truly help make this one-of-a-kind game stand out on toy store shelves.