Wouter & Ymke 
The humans have gone to work, so naturally the neighbourhood dogs have decided this is the perfect time to behave terribly. Gardens can be dug up, food can disappear, furniture can be destroyed and apparently jumping onto a moving car is also on the agenda. Nobody is going to stop them for the next few hours.
The owners do eventually come home, and somebody has to take the blame. That’s basically where The Bark Side puts us. We’re all causing trouble together, while hoping another dog gets caught looking guilty at the end. It’s a trick-taking game about getting rid of your hand and, when those final cards appear, really not wanting to be the one left with the worst possible card. The Bark Side will also be at Spiel ’26 with Korea Boardgames this October.
👥 3-6 players, ages 7+
⏳️ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Kotaro Kanda
🎨 Artwork: Serene Wyatt
🏢 Publisher: Korea Boardgames (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
The Bark Side is a trick-taking game played over several rounds. Everyone starts the first round with 10 cards and passes two cards to the player on their right. Any cards that weren’t dealt are set aside for that round.
The starting player plays one card, then everyone else follows clockwise. You can play any card that is equal to or higher than the highest card already in the trick. You can also decide you don’t want to compete and tuck your tail. This means playing the lowest card in your hand and giving up any chance of winning that trick.
The first person to tuck their tail during a round flips the shared tail-tucking dog card. Sets can now be used to start future tricks. A set consists of matching cards, and everyone else must play the same number of cards. Staying in the trick requires an equal or higher matching set. Tucking your tail is still possible, though you now have to play the required number of your lowest cards. Those don’t need to match.
Whoever played the highest card or set wins the trick, ignoring anyone who tucked their tail. A tie goes to whoever played the tied card or set last. That player becomes the new top dog and starts the next trick. The cards from the completed trick are set aside for the rest of the round.
There’s one important restriction: you always have to keep at least one card in your hand. Eventually everyone is left holding exactly one, which means the owners have come home. All those final cards are played, and this is the one trick you really don’t want to win. The top dog takes every card from that final trick as punishment and keeps them in front of themselves, sorted by dog type. Those cards stay out of the deck. Everything else is shuffled for another round, with cards dealt evenly when there aren’t enough to give everyone the usual amount.
The dog who took the blame starts the next round. Play continues until someone has seven different dog types in front of them, or there aren’t enough cards left to deal at least six to every player. Whoever has collected the fewest different dog types wins.
Artwork & Components
There isn’t much inside The Bark Side, but the cards are where most of the personality comes from. You get 60 dog cards, with five copies of every value from 1 to 12, together with the double-sided tail-tucking dog card and two special cards for the variants. The 11s and 12s stay in the box when playing with three or four people.
Every number has its own dog getting into some kind of trouble, from making a mess indoors to jumping onto a moving car. I like that they aren’t just different dogs standing around. Each one gets its own little scene, and we spent some time going through them when we first opened the box.
Lower numbers start in blues and greens before moving through yellow and orange towards the darker reds of the highest cards. The numbers are large and visible in both upper corners. Nothing unusual, it just works.
It’s otherwise a simple production. The box is small, the cards have a lightly textured finish, and there’s nothing here beyond what the game actually uses. Later in the game, those growing punishment piles also make it easy to see which dogs have already been caught.
Our Experience
The Bark Side didn’t give us much trouble during our first game. Judging which cards we actually wanted to keep was another matter. A hand full of high numbers looked great for the opening tricks, right up until we realised we’d have to take some of those cards with us towards the end. Someone else had happily thrown away their low cards and ended up with almost nothing left that could safely get them out of trouble. A few rounds later, none of us was quite as excited to see a hand filled with high numbers.
We used sets badly too. Our first instinct was simply to get several cards out of our hands at once. Later we started paying more attention to what everyone else had to throw away. There were several occasions where somebody tucked their tail against a set, put two or three low cards down, looked at what remained in their hand and went, “Ah. I needed those.”
Large sets caught us out in another way. Suddenly four cards were gone from everyone’s hand and that final card was much closer than expected.
With more players, planning several turns ahead became something we stopped bothering with. We’d save a pair, expect another opportunity to lead, and watch three people completely change the situation before it came back to us. So much for that plan. We didn’t start counting every card either. The punishment piles gave us some information, although with cards sitting out of the round as well, we never tried to keep track of everything.
The final cards got the biggest reactions. Some rounds ended with everyone knowing exactly who was in trouble. In others, somebody confidently put down what they thought was a safe card, only to discover that everyone else could go lower. I mean, there’s something appropriately dog-like about causing trouble all afternoon and then looking genuinely surprised when you’re the one being scolded.
We also added the two special dogs once everyone knew the standard game. The wild dog caused the most confusion because it added another possibility when looking at sets and low cards, while the starting dog messed with who expected to begin a round. We enjoyed trying them. We were also happy to play without them again.
Our Thoughts
The Bark Side gives you less control than some trick-taking games, and I think that’s the main thing to know going in. It becomes especially noticeable at five or six players. Seating order matters, your starting hand matters, and several people can completely change what’s possible before you get another turn. Someone can also receive a hand that lets them stay in charge for several tricks without having to work especially hard for it. Anyone looking for a card game where close tracking and precise play usually decide the winner may find this too loose.
We were fine with that. The uncertainty usually came from another player doing something inconvenient rather than the game suddenly throwing a random effect at us. Even after a plan fell apart, there was still the question of what to do with the hand we had left. And, importantly, there was someone sitting across the table we could blame.
I do think the full game can run too long. Individual turns are quick and the rounds move along, yet we had sessions where we were ready to stop before one of the end conditions had been reached. By that point we’d seen what the game was going to do. The changing deck gives you some extra information to work with as punishment cards disappear, but it doesn’t change how we approach the game enough to make those later rounds feel substantially different.
That’s the main criticism for us. I’d much rather play The Bark Side with people who keep their turns moving than have everyone study every possible card before putting something down.
It also isn’t a game where we feel the need to squeeze the maximum value out of every decision. We enjoyed making a plan, watching someone else ruin it, complaining about that for a few seconds and carrying on. That mixture of trick-taking, climbing and interfering with each other’s hands worked well for us. It won’t replace the more controlled card games we play, and I wish it wrapped up a little sooner, but we’d happily play it again.
Preferably with people willing to accept that my dog was obviously innocent.
📝 We received a copy of The Bark Side from Korea Boardgames.
Going to Spiel Essen ’26? You’ll be able to try The Bark Side there with Korea Boardgames.
You can also find all of our pre-Spiel ’26 coverage here.
