How to Play the Spot It Game

2 to 8 players ages 7 and up

This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

The first time I heard of Spot It (also known as Dobble) was in a computer ad. Can you find what matches? Sure, not that hard. Then there was a sample game that you actually played. It was harder than I thought and I was hooked. I knew we had to have this game.

After all, we love the game Blink and I Spy Eagle Eye.

I was right, it has turned into one of our must have games, landing on our Best Games of 2020 and 2021. Keep reading to find out what we love so much about this seemingly simple game.

Setting Up Spot It

There are Spot It Rules for five different games. Therefore, you have to decide which game to play and follow the rules for that game. In this post, I will cover the rules for the first game The Tower, also our family favorite.

For The Tower, set up is simple. Every player is dealt one card face down and the rest of the cards—the tower—is placed face up in the middle of the playing area.

Object

The object of Spot It Tower is to be the player who collects the most cards.

Playing Spot It

When all players are ready, they flip over their card and the race beings. Each player is trying to spot the one symbol that matches on their card and the top one on the tower.

Every Spot It card has one symbol that matches with every card (and only one). The size and orientation can change but the colours and actual symbol will always be the same. The round shape of the cards makes it harder as you can not memorize as you could if they were square.

Once a player spots the matching symbol, they call out the name of it and can then pick up the card and put it onto of their stack. Now their top card has changed to be the one they just picked up. Players now race to find the symbol that matches on the new exposed tower card.

Play continues to until there are no more cards in the tower.

Winning Spot It

The winner of Spot It Tower is the player who has the most cards in their stack.

Spot It Variations

The Well

This game is the Tower in reverse. This means that all the cards are dealt to the players face down until there is just one card left. This card is placed in the middle of the playing area. Players then race to find their match and place their card onto the card in the middle. The player who places all of their cards in the well first is the winner.

Hot Potato

In this variation of Spot It, players are dealt one card. They place this card in the palm of their hand and everyone races to get ride of their card. When a match is found the player places in on top of the matching card. The player who has the placed card now has to try to match that card with another player and place both cards on the matching card. When a player has all the cards, the round is over. At the end of the agreed upon number of rounds, the player with the least amount of cards is the winner.

The Poisoned Gift

The Poisoned Gift starts like the tower. The difference is that instead of collecting cards from the center stack, you are trying to place cards from the stack to other players. The winner is the player who has the least amount of cards in their stack when the center stack is empty.

Triplet

The set up for Triplet is to place 9 Spot It cards down on the table in three rows. Players then race to find three cards with matching symbols—that is all three cards have the same symbol on them. When a match is made, that player collects the cards and three new cards are placed on the table and the race continues. When there are not enough cards to have a full set of nine cards down, the game is over. Players then count how many cards they have collected. The player with the most is the winner.

Tournament

In a Spot It tournament, all the mini games are played. Points are given out differently for each mini game.

In the tower, players score 1 point for each card and the player who won gets an extra 5 points. The points for the well are that the first player to run out of cards gets 10 points where the last player loses 20 points. In Hot Potato, players lose 5 points for each round that they lose. For the Poisoned Gift, the player with the least amount of cards wins 20 points and the second place gets 10 points. To finish off the tournament, Triplet is scored as 1 point per card collected and 5 extra points to the player who collected the most. After all the mini games of Spot It have been played, players tally up all their points and the player with the most wins the tournament!

What We Like

Spot It has been a family favorite from the very first time we played. We love that it is easy to explain and play; after only one card match a new player gets the game. The number of mini games is great to keep things interesting (although we almost always play the Tower as it’s the easiest to set up and play). We also like that a game of Spot It only takes a few minutes—perfect for a quick game while waiting for something. The packaging is also a plus. The tin that it comes in is small but the perfect size for the cards (even after the abuse we have put the cards through). It makes is a great game to take on travels. Another thing we love is that players of any age can play this game—no reading needed, no extra knowledge of anything.

We like Spot It so much that we have three games of it. Spot It games in our collection include the original, Harry Potter and camping. There is a Spot It theme for everyone—preschool, spot lovers, Christmas, even waterproof!

Lastly, it is one of the best two player games that we have come across. It plays just as well with two as it does with three or four.

What We Don’t Like

Well, if I had to choose something we don’t like about Spot It….  It is a very competitive game for our family. There is often shouts and minor injuries as we fight out the race. But really, I think that complaint says more about our family than the game. Plus it’s actually another thing we like about it as we love games where we argue—in fun only.

The only other complaint that we (not I) have is that some family members are slower spotters than others. (There are those who won’t play against me.) To combat this, I’ve had to count to three in my head once I spot my match to announce it.

Spot All the Fun

Spot It is an easy to understand card game of quick spotting. It is addictive and involving and takes just a snack sized amount of time to play with lots of games with in the game. We would say that Spot It is a must have for your Family Game Shelf.

To find a Spot It game for your Family Game Shelf shop here. Canadians can shop Amazon.

If you love the idea of Spot It be sure to check out the games Blink, I Spy Eagle Eye and the classic card game Spoons. Also, be sure to look through our Family Game Shelf Shop to spot lots of fun games for game night.

To find out what our other family favorite games are check out our Best Games of 2020 and see our Recommendations page for more must-have games.

For more family game night fun, see our game reviews, card games and dice games!

Rating:

Pros: fast, easy to learn, size, mini games, compact
Cons: can be noisy,
Mom: speed, attention to details