Puglicious Board Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of Puglicious

The objective of Puglicious is to collect the most dog treats during the game.

Setup

Push the pug into the base until is snaps into place. Place the pug in the middle of the table so everyone can reach it.
Attach the bone sticker to the front of the base and give your dog a name.
Lay all of the treats out on the table with the number side facing down. Mix up all of the treats.
Push down on the pug’s head until it sits down.
The youngest player starts the game.

Playing Puglicious

Picking A Treat

To start your turn you will choose one of the treats from the table. Turn it over to look at the number. The number on the treat determines how many times you can press the button on the pug’s foot.

Choosing a Treat — The current player chose this red treat. It has a two on it. The player can press the button on the pug’s foot one or two times.

Then take the treat and stack it on top of the pug’s nose. You will place the treat so the number side is face up. If there are already treats on the nose, stack your treat on top of the treats already on the nose. Should you knock off any of the treats while you are placing them on the nose, stack them back up on the nose. You can always adjust the position of the stack of treats.

Placing a treat in Puglicious — After picking the red two treat, the current player places it on the pug’s nose.

Pressing the Button

Next you will press the button on the pug’s foot. The number on the treat you chose determines the maximum number of times you can press the button. You can press it less times than the number. For example if you picked up a treat with the number three on it, you can press the button one, two or three times.

Some of the treats have a star on them instead of a number. The official instructions do not specifically say what you should do when you pick one of these treats. The rules do say you can press the button up to the number printed on the treat. Therefore I would assume if you choose a star treat, you do not get to press the button at all. Since the rules do not specifically say what to do with these treats, the players should agree to how they want to handle these treats.

If the pug does not open its mouth, nothing happens. Play passes to the next person in turn order (the game does not say if turn order moves clockwise or counter-clockwise).

Eating Treats

Eventually after pressing the button on the pug’s foot, it will open its mouth and launch the treats from its nose into the air.

Any treats launched into the air that do not fall into the pug’s mouth are returned to the table. You will flip them so the number side is not visible. Then mix them up with the other treats on the table.

Treats the pug didn't eat — After the last button press the pug opened its mouth. It ate some of the treats, but a green and blue treat fell out of its mouth. The blue and green treat will be turned over and mixed up with the other treats that haven’t been picked yet.

Any treats that end up in the pug’s mouth, go to the player that last pressed the button on the pug’s foot. You will add the treats to your own personal score pile.

Treats ate by the pug — The pug ended up eating three treats. These three treats are given to the player who last pressed the button.

To reset the pug to continue playing Puglicious, you will press down on its head until it sits.

Winning Puglicious

The game ends when there are no more treats left on the table or on the pug’s nose.

If there are no treats left on the table but there are still treats left on the pug’s nose, the players will take turns pressing the button on the pug’s foot. In turn order each player will press the button once. The player that presses the button that makes the pug eat the treats gets to take any treats that falls into the pug’s mouth. If any treats fall on the table, you will turn them so the number side is hidden. You will then continue playing the game like normal.

Once all of the treats have been eaten and claimed by a player, the game ends. Each player counts up how many treats they collected in the game. The player that collected the most treats wins the game.

Winning Puglicious — At the end of the game the players collected the following treats. The top player collected the most treats so they have won the game.

Puglicious FAQ

What should you do when you choose a treat that has a star on it?

The rules make no mentions of the treats with stars on them. Therefore there are no official rules for what you should do when you pick one. Since there is no official rules, the players should agree to how to handle them. You could play where you get to keep pressing the button until the dog opens its mouth or any other option that all of the players agree to.

I personally would choose to play it where you don’t get to press the button at all. I think this is how it should be handled since all the game says about the treats is that you can press the button up to the number on the treat you picked. Since there is no number on these treats, I think you don’t get to press the button at all. You should handle these treats however your group prefers though.

When I pressed the button the treats fell off the nose even though the pug’s mouth never opened. What do you do with the treats?

Frequently while playing Puglicious the treats would fall off the nose after we pressed the button. This wasn’t due to the treats moving because the mouth opened. Treats would regularly slide off the nose. The official rules don’t specifically address this situation. Since the rules do say to put the treats back on the nose should they fall off when you are putting them on, in this situation I believe you should put them back on the nose as well.

We keep pressing the button and the pug won’t open it’s mouth. What should we do?

While playing Puglicious this situation happened a couple of times for us. No matter how many times we pressed the button the pug would not open its mouth. In these situations something malfunctioned and the mouth didn’t open up when it should have.

There is no clear cut rule for how to handle these situations. We chose to reset the pug and restart from when the last player acquired treats. We thought this was the fairest way to handle the pug malfunctioning.

Have a Question?

If you have any questions about how to play Puglicious, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Publicious Components

Pug
24 treats (8 of each color)
- 3 – star treats (1 of each color)
- 9 – 1 treats (3 of each color)
- 6 – 2 treats (2 of each color)
- 6 – 3 treats (2 of each color)
Instructions

Year: 2020 | Publisher: Mattel

Genres: Children’s, Family

Ages: 5+ | Number of Players: 2-4 | Length of Game: 10-15 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

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