TL;DR – Charm from the first click to the last.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

Dogpile Review Introduction –

Every now and again, you don’t need a hundred-hour RPG or twitch shooter or even a dudes diving into an asteroid to mine dig-fest, what you need is something quaint and full of charm. The sort of charm that knocks your socks off or makes you say audible ‘awwww’. Well, today we look at just such a game, one that has charmed me all week. It is also interesting that two of the games that I have gotten the most out of this year, this and Peak, have been indie-studio collaborations. I am not sure what that means, but it is a fun anecdote for me.

So, to set the scene, you run a kennel where many dogs with many different behaviours come to be found. You’ll need to keep everything from spiralling out of control, while making sure you get to the dog wash, buy items in the shops to help you, and also, don’t forget to give your dogs all the pats in the world.

Mechanics

Mechanically, Dogpile is a match puzzle game in the same space as Suika, but you are combining dogs together rather than fruit, trying to get the biggest combination before your dogs go over the line at the top of the game board. Now, if this were just a palette swap, it would still be successful for the charm points that I will mention a bit later. However, Dogpile is more than that. What we get is layers of additional flags that can dramatically shift how the game is played from session to session. Each of your dogs can collect a bunch of traits, some good, some bad. Some dogs are barkers, shifting the gameboard in surprising ways. Others might be crated, preventing combinations for several turns.

There are two main currencies in the game (note: these are not used for microtransactions), the first is money that you can use at the shop to buy more dogs or bonuses that affect the gameboard. My favourite was one round when I purchased a power-up that made a bunch of the dogs spin, and then also the Jupiter power-up that removed gravity from the game board. The sheer chaos that erupted was a delight to behold. The other currency is bones that feed into the risk-reward mechanic that is running under the hood. If you meet your target of bones during the different hands, you get to go to the dog wash, where three of your dogs get given a positive trait. But if you don’t, you get a penalty added to your game that can be decisive in whether you have a successful run or not. This is reinforced by the dogs getting larger and more oddly shaped as you get further down the line.

Charm

What elevates Dogpile from a lot of the other games that work in this space is the charm that oozes from every part of this production. To start with, all the dogs are adorable, as all of them have their own personalities that leap from the screen thanks to some delightful art direction. Also, let me make it clear here: yes, you can pet that dog, and I recommend that you always go pet that dog. One of the joys when you first pick up the game is seeing what delights the following dog combination will be, and yes, it is worth it when you find out what the final dog is.

That charm is baked into every aspect of the game; you see it in all aspects of the art design that uses the shorthand of a deck of cards to help you conceptualise all the different interactions. The voice they use for the narrator, as you are learning the game, is a delight, so you actually listen to the hints they give. Also, the music is captivating, and absolutely does some of the heavy lifting to bring you into this charming world and make you want to play one more round to see if you can beat your high score. Indeed, I struggled when writing this review, because I would go to the game to check something and then end up playing a couple of rounds.   

Recommendation

So, in the end, would we recommend Dogpile to you? Yes, yes, we would. Dogpile isn’t a game for marathon sessions, but it’s perfect for winding down at the end of the day. But I know I have already got my money’s worth out of the game this week, and I know that I will be coming back to the game regularly when I want to calm down at the end of the day. Have you played Dogpile? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Feel free to share this review on social media and check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits –All images were created by the staff of Dogpile
Art, Design & Direction – Jessica Shipard
Programming, Design & Direction – Matthew Jackson
Design, Production & Direction – Darcey Smith
Programming & Tech Direction – Matthew Horton
Illustration, Animation & Art Direction – Georgia Kriss
Voice Acting – Millie Holten & Josh Burton
Music – Gordon McGladdery
Developer – Studio Folly, Toot Games & Foot
Publisher – Wings