Over the first weekend of March 2025, Linda Pelnik and Sue Dohm visited New York City. The longtime friends, along with more than 25,000 other people, were in Manhattan to attend Toy Fair 2025 — the largest toy show in the Western Hemisphere and the industry’s most iconic event. There, thousands of toys and games from around the world are just waiting to be discovered.
It was a bitterly cold evening when Linda and Sue left Javits Center after the fair’s first day.
Ahead of them, several people were gathered on the sidewalk.
Contributed photo.
“Are you guys coming from the Toy Fair?” one of them called out.
In casual conversation, Linda asked them if they’d seen anything at the fair they liked.
They hadn’t walked around much, they said, but a friend did and shared with them that the “best thing they’d seen was this new dice game.”
As Linda explains today: “That Toy Fair is immense. I mean, it’s blocks long. It’s LEGO trucks, full-sized. It’s Hasbro and Mattel.”
Back on the NY city street, one of the young women got out her phone and showed Linda and Sue a picture of the game.
As she is known to do with the “shelfies” she takes after finding the game they invented, That’s Spot On!, on a store shelf, Linda broke into tears.
“This person loved our game,” she says. “We felt like we belonged. We were there with Mattel and Hasbro, and we were holding our own.”
A New Spin
The addictive family-friendly dice game is the debut title of Spot On Games, which was founded in 2024 by Cary residents Linda and Sue. That’s Spot On! was released on April 1, 2025, and is designed for 2–6 players ages 12 and up (though savvy youngsters will also enjoy it). The quick playtime runs 15–30 minutes.
Players take turns placing bids, calling bluffs, or shouting “Spot On!” to test their instincts and outwit the competition. With Pass Tokens, Reverse Tokens, and wild dice rules, every round brings a twist — and all the fun happens around the table with family or friends.
The game’s tagline is “It’s Liar’s Dice — Only Better.” After purchasing the original bluffing dice game for her son at Christmas, Linda observed: “There were things that I didn’t like about it that we changed within our family. I just changed the rules myself, and instead of Liar’s Dice, we called it Spot On.”
Getting on Board
Years after Sue and Linda first met in the stands during their daughters’ middle-school sporting events, their families continued to get together for game nights.
“We had a common interest in games, for sure,” Sue says.
Early packaging ideas for the game
Although Linda had for many years said that she was going to manufacture the game, when she approached Sue about the possibility, Sue didn’t hesitate to say, “Let’s do it.”
After being in IT for 35 years, Sue had recently left her job and wasn’t enticed by new opportunities. Linda was an English teacher who had stepped away to raise her now-grown children.
The timing was spot on.
The Dice Are Cast
The agreement for starting their company was that Linda and Sue would walk away if there was ever an argument that couldn’t be solved.
“Linda’s got her strengths. I’ve got mine,” Sue says. “We complement each other.”
In Liar’s Dice, players hide dice under a cup and try to guess what everybody else has under their cups, raising or challenging bids. Linda’s original change added the option to wager that a bid is exactly right, or spot on.
When she and Sue started writing out the rules for their new game, Linda says, “We talked to family. They came up with ideas, and we just kept adding them and making the game even better.”
Getting Rolling
Following a game prototype to ensure players understood the rules, more feedback flowed in. Then came the design stage.
Finally, after selecting a US intermediary and manufacturer in China, That’s Spot On! was in production. From start to finish, the process took roughly a year and wasn’t without its hiccups (like just missing the tariff deadline and having to outlay 20% before a game was ever sold).
Upon shipping, Linda and Sue were advised to fill a 40-foot cargo container, which accommodated 8,000 copies of the game. Unfortunately, the shipment was rerouted several times, causing delays and an unexpected financial hit. Linda recalls, “It was terrible watching our boat travel all over the world.”
Thankfully, when those boxes arrived at the Tarboro warehouse, it was water under the bridge.
Sue and Linda greet the games’ arrival at the warehouse. Contributed photo.
Game Changer
Sales have been in line with what Sue and Linda anticipated for a brand entering a crowded market. They expect the steady growth to continue, and Sue says the positive response has been “especially validating.”
Local retailers have been supportive, with Learning Express the most recent to carry the game.
Sean O’Neil at Science Safari in Cary was one of Linda and Sue’s first champions. Sean has been in the business for almost 40 years, and he shared his valuable experience related to selling, marketing, and packaging the game.
“I was able to give them some insight,” Sean says humbly, though Linda and Sue think enough of Sean’s assistance that when the games arrived at the warehouse, Science Safari was their first stop to drop off an initial one-case order.
“For us,” he continues, “that’s what community is. We ask people to shop local. We shop local if we can.”
“Everybody was so nice,” Linda says about the generosity they encountered. “We talked to other game people, other game inventors …”
“They were just so eager to talk to us and share their ideas and even their contacts,” Sue chimes in.
Spot On Games’ new family game, Spot & Snap Safari, releases this summer.
The dice adventure takes players through a safari where they race to get all the pictures of the big animals.
Local artist Christina Britte provided all the game’s art. A “great creative force in our community,” Linda and Sue were enthralled by her work when they met her at the Junior League of Raleigh event A Shopping SPREE!
Let the Good Times Roll
Linda and Sue want to keep educating the public about That’s Spot On! because when people know how to play it, they’re hooked. (Linda’s husband, Chris, is perhaps the game’s best advocate, as he continues to play it daily with his coworkers.)
“We’re having fun for sure,” Linda says about making their invention a joy-filled reality. Spot On Games will continue making games until she and Sue “aren’t having fun anymore.”
Though that doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon. Public tournaments are planned, and when Sue’s children visit from across the country, they can always expect a family game night.
The goal, after all, is to bring people together through gameplay.
Hosting That’s Spot On! game events has been one of Linda and Sue’s favorite parts of the business, and they are always happy to talk with groups interested in custom events.
spotongames.com
@spotongames
- 2026 Maggy Awards: Shopping
- 2026 Maggy Awards: Services
- 2026 Maggy Awards: Lifestyle
- 2026 Maggy Awards: Restaurants
- The 2026 Maggy Awards
- Garden Adventurer: Voodoo Gardening
- Recipes from Readers: Apple Cinnamon Crumb Cake
- Liquid Assets: Small Town Charm
- Catch the Smoke: Lawrence Barbecue Comes to Cary
- Game On!
- Pay It Forward: NeighborUp
- Small Business Spotlight: Alloy Personal Training
- Things to Do: March 2026
