Dobble (Spot It!) Rules and Variants

Dobble, also known as Spot It!, is a popular card game created by Jacques Cottereau and published by Zygomatic, distributed by Asmodee. The whole game rests on a single property: between any two cards in the same deck there is always exactly one matching symbol — never two, never none.

The classic edition contains 55 cards with 8 symbols per card and more than 50 different symbols in total. The rules described below are those of Dobble Access+, an official adaptation of the game, whose 65 cards are split into three difficulty levels:

• Easy: 13 cards with 4 symbols each
• Intermediate: 21 cards with 5 symbols each
• Advanced: 31 cards with 6 symbols each

The decks for the different difficulty levels must never be mixed together: the "exactly one matching symbol" guarantee only holds inside a single deck.

Objective

There is no single objective — the rulebook offers two ways to play, with opposite goals:

• The Inferno Tower (La Tour infernale): collect the most cards by the end of the game.
• The Well (Le Puits): be the first player to get rid of all your cards.

In both modes the core action is identical: spot the one symbol shared by your card and the face-up card in the middle of the table, and call it out loud.

Setup

The Inferno Tower. Choose the difficulty level you want and take the matching deck. Each player receives 1 card, face down, and places it in front of them. The rest of the cards go face up in the middle of the table to form the draw pile. Take a good look at the top face-up card of that pile — you can describe its symbols together out loud. When everyone is ready, the game begins.

The Well. Choose a difficulty level, then deal the cards face down according to the number of players: with 2 players, 6 cards on Easy, 10 on Intermediate, 15 on Advanced; with 3 players, 6 cards on Intermediate and 10 on Advanced; with 4 players, 7 cards on Advanced. Then place 1 card face up in the middle of the table to form the well. Any leftover cards go back in the box and are not used for this game.

How to Play

The Inferno Tower. All players flip their card face up at the same time. The first player to find the symbol shared by their own card and the card in the middle of the table calls it out loud. If they are right, they take the top card of the draw pile and place it on top of their own card. Every player then looks for the symbol shared by the top card of their pile and the new face-up card in the centre. Play continues this way until there are no cards left in the central pile.

The Well. All players simultaneously flip the top card of their personal pile face up. The first player to find the symbol shared by that card and the card in the centre calls it out loud. If they are right, they place the top card of their pile onto the well in the middle of the table. Everyone then looks for the match between their new top card and the new card on the well, and so on.

In both modes, remember that two cards can only ever share one symbol. If you think you can see two matches, you are misreading one of them.

Scoring and End of Game

In The Inferno Tower, the game ends when there are no cards left in the draw pile. Each player counts the cards in front of them, and the player (or players) with the highest number of cards wins.

In The Well, the game ends as soon as one player has got rid of all their cards — that player is the winner.

Solo Play

Dobble Access+ can also be played by a single player, with a helper watching over the first few games at least. The rules are the same as in the multiplayer modes. The rulebook suggests a few adjustments: time your games to track your progress, play short rounds with fewer cards so you can move between difficulty levels, use the cards to name symbols and colours as a vocabulary and memory exercise, and pick whichever of the two modes suits the player best.

A Fun Fact

The idea behind Dobble goes back to 1976, when Jacques Cottereau worked on generalisations of a recreational maths puzzle known as Kirkman's schoolgirl problem: fifteen schoolgirls walk out in rows of three every day — how do you arrange things so that each one walks with each of the others exactly once? The structures he built are known to mathematicians as "balanced incomplete blocks", and he turned them into an "insect game" where you had to find the insect shared by two cards. In spring 2008, Denis Blanchot came across a few cards of that old game, teamed up with its author, replaced the over-complex motifs with icons you can recognise at a glance and pushed the design towards 8 symbols per card to give the game a real sense of speed. After many prototypes and playtests, notably with children, Dobble as we know it launched in autumn 2009.

Where to Get the Game

dobble spot it card game on Amazon

Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

• Mixing decks from different difficulty levels: the one-shared-symbol property only works within a single deck.
• Calling out a symbol you are not sure about: take the extra half-second and name the right one.
• Spotting the match silently: saying it out loud is what makes it count.
• Hunting for several matches: there is only ever one between two cards.
• Ignoring size and orientation: the same symbol can appear much bigger or rotated from one card to the next.

FAQ

1. Can Dobble be played solo?

   • Yes. Dobble Access+ explicitly includes a one-player game, with a helper for the first few rounds, using the same rules as the multiplayer modes.

2. How many players does The Well support?

   • The dealing table in the rulebook covers 2, 3 and 4 players, with the number of cards also depending on the difficulty level chosen.

3. Can I shuffle the Easy, Intermediate and Advanced decks together?

   • No. The rulebook explicitly forbids it — each deck is a self-contained set.

4. How many symbols are there on a card?

   • In Dobble Access+ it depends on the level: 4, 5 or 6 symbols. In the classic edition there are 8 symbols per card.

5. Can two cards share two symbols?

   • Never. Any two cards from the same deck share exactly one symbol.

6. Which mode should beginners start with?

   • The Inferno Tower is the easiest to explain, since everyone starts with a single card. The Well involves managing a personal pile and works well when you want a slightly longer game.

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