Disclosure: This product was sent to us free of charge for the purpose of this review. However, as per my PR Info page, this review represents our honest opinion of the product. This post may contain affiliate links.
Product: Hoddog & Sosig, from Joking Hazard
Price: £7.99 each
Age Range: 10+
Manufacturer’s Description: It’s fun in a bun with Hoddog, the award-winning, family and travel friendly push-your-luck game of wieners and winners. Sosig is a pocket-sized strategy game, perfect for fun family game nights and the ideal travel accessory.
Rating: (5/5 stars) Review: We were sent Hoddog and Sosig by Joking Hazard to try out, and we’ve been having a lot of fun with them. Both are quirky card games with a silly sausage theme, compact boxes and relatively short playing times, making them ideal for families and holidays. Although they play quite differently, they’re similar enough that it made sense to compare them in one review. Both games come in small, travel-friendly boxes, so they’d be perfect for taking on trips. We always like to pack a few games when we go away, and these are ideal because they don’t require much setup and won’t take up much room in your luggage. Hoddog is the quicker and simpler of the two games, with each round lasting around 10 minutes. It has a recommended age of 10+, but I think our girls would have happily played it a few years earlier than that. Suitable for 2–5 players, it’s a great little family card game. The aim of the game is to create the longest hoddog by collecting and playing sets of matching cards. At the start of the game, each player is dealt seven cards and five face-up cards are laid out to create the market. On your turn, you can either swap two cards from your hand with two from the market or draw three mystery cards from the deck. Instead of picking up cards, you can choose to play a completed set from your hand to build your hoddog. The deck contains cards numbered 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7, along with ketchup splat cards. To complete a set, you need to collect the same number of matching cards as the value shown – one 1, three 3s, four 4s, and so on. The exception is the ones, where you can choose to save them up and play five together. At the end of the game, the numbers themselves don’t usually matter. The winner is simply the player with the longest hoddog. If there’s a tie, the player with the highest-value set wins. The game ends once all of the ketchup splat cards have been revealed. These are shuffled into the deck after the initial deal, so every time you choose to draw three mystery cards, you’re risking finding a splat. Once only one splat remains, every draw could end the game. This has led to some amusing attempts to persuade other players to “go to the market” instead, just so the persuader has enough time to play one last set! It’s a simple game to learn, quick to set up and lots of fun to play. I can definitely see us playing this on the train table on our way to Wales next month, although our hoddogs might have to bend around a few corners to fit! Sosig is the more strategic of the two games. It needs a little more table space, takes a bit longer to play and requires a little more setup, but there’s much more going on once the game gets underway. To begin, you set up five shuffled decks: Awards, Orders, Heads, Bodies and Mystery Meats. Two body cards and two order cards are placed face up, along with one head card. The Mystery Meat deck stays face down, while one Award card is revealed and the rest are returned to the box for this game. The aim of Sosig is to score the most points by completing customer orders while also competing for the current award card. Along the way, you can sabotage other players or earn bonus points using the Mystery Meat cards, giving the game a much more tactical feel than Hoddog. On each turn, you choose either one of the face-up head or body cards or draw one from the appropriate deck. There are different kinds of head & body Sosig cards that affect how the game is played. Any face-up card you take is immediately replaced, so there are always visible options available. As you collect cards, you’re trying to build sosigs that complete the available orders, score well for the award card, or ideally both at once. You don’t have a ‘hand’ in this game, but play cards straight down onto the table – though you can hang onto a mystery meat card and play it during a later turn. The game ends when there’s only one card remaining in either the Head or Body deck. The next player must use that final card before everyone totals up their points. Thankfully, the game includes four handy reference cards so everyone has the key rules close by. The instructions also explain exactly how to score your finished sosigs. You’ll lose points for unfinished creations (although a one-headed sosig is still better than none!) while completed orders, award objectives and certain combinations of heads and bodies all help boost your final score. As you can probably tell, Sosig is definitely the more complex game of the two, so the recommended age of 10+ feels much more appropriate here. It can be played by 2–4 players and takes around 15–20 minutes to complete a game once everything is set up. Although they share the same quirky humour and colourful artwork, Hoddog and Sosig offer two quite different experiences. Hoddog is the one we’d reach for when we want something quick and easy. The rules are simple to learn, games move along at a nice pace and it’s perfect for introducing new players or filling ten spare minutes. Sosig takes a little more concentration and planning, but that’s exactly what makes it satisfying. Deciding which cards to collect, when to complete orders and how best to use the Mystery Meat cards means there’s more strategy involved, making each game feel a little different. One thing both games have in common is the fantastic artwork. I really like the illustrations and overall design of the cards. They use bold, clear fonts, so even when a card is halfway across the table it’s easy to see exactly what it is. That’s particularly helpful when looking at the market in Hoddog or the face-up heads, bodies and orders in Sosig. Both Hoddog and Sosig have earned a place in our family games cupboard. They’re compact, easy to transport and don’t take all evening to play, making them ideal for holidays, weekends away or simply an evening of family fun. If you’re after something quick, light-hearted and easy to teach, Hoddog is an excellent choice. If you enjoy a little more strategy and don’t mind spending a few extra minutes learning the rules, Sosig offers a rewarding step up in complexity. Whichever you choose, both games are packed with personality and plenty of laughs, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to families looking for something a little different from the usual card games.
Hoddog
Sosig
Which did we prefer?
Final thoughts
