Review: PHOGS!

A game featuring dogs? Count me in! PHOGS! is a game where you play as a duo of dogs, Red and Blue on a captivating, puzzle-filled adventure. Co-operation is key in this game by Bit Loom Games, whether it be with yourself or another player. The game offers some fun and hilarious gameplay, but is that enough to keep a player hooked?

We played PHOGS! for 6 hours on PC.

What we liked!

• Silly gameplay: You progress through the game by solving puzzles (and sometimes levels felt more like minigames to me, which I loved). These puzzles aren’t the most difficult ones you’ll encounter in games, but they are fun nonetheless. And that is what this game is about. You use the ‘two’ dogs who are bound to each other and their three abilities (stretch, bark, and bounce) to get to the next level. There are a total of 24 levels, divided over three worlds: the Food, Sleep, and Play the world, obviously. I loved every single one and all three looked exactly like you4d expect them to look, and better! The Food World looked cool but was actually my least favorite world. The Sleep World was super dreamy, and just so cozy, damn. And the Play World had you catching ducklings as you can do during fairs, and play bowling and whatnot, how cool!
• Graphics: PHOGS! look absolutely adorable, let me tell you. It was a real treat to travel through every single level and world. Everything looks so bright and cute, you’ll be staring throughout every level. My personal favorite world was the Sleep World. I can already see my LIX colleagues go ‘well, of course, you’re always sleeping’ but that’s not the only reason! I loved the simple puzzles in this game, and I thought it was amazing that this world was basically made out of soft fabrics and that you had to use light to your advantage. Also, this world is very purple and that happens to be my favorite color, so yeah. It all felt very dreamy, really.
• Multiplayer: Even though playing this game by yourself is already a lot of fun, PHOGS! is most enjoyable in the multiplayer mode. It adds a little more challenge, and laughter, when you and your friend both control one end of the dog, that’s for sure. There’s a shared-controller option but there’s also a local and online co-op, so no excuses, you can play this game whichever way you like! And hey, if you don’t have anyone to play with (right now), it honestly is still a super fun game in single-player mode, I promise. I spent most of my time in single-player and still had the best time.
• Controls: It’s very easy to play this game, and I’m sure that will appeal to many. It’s so easy to have someone join you because they’ll get the hang of it in seconds. There are like two buttons you have to remember and the rest is just ‘walking’ around. This makes PHOGS! suitable for all ages. However, I do recommend using a gamepad, because the keyboard did not feel very appropriate. I played this game on my laptop (you don’t need a high-end PC to play this, yay), but I might try it out on my Switch as well, to see and feel the difference.

Somewhere between

• Camera: So you can’t choose your own camera perspective, and sometimes this was a tad annoying. I couldn’t always see the part of the level I wanted to see, and that got on my nerves every now and then. It’s not the biggest issue, of course, because I could still very much enjoy the game, but at times, it just felt like the camera didn’t react as quickly as it should and I had to wait a few seconds before being able to continue.

What we disliked

• Replay value: It’s simple, there is none. The fun comes from solving puzzles while traveling through a very cute and bright world. However, if you take away the challenge that comes from solving the puzzles, the gameplay doesn’t suffice. So unless you forget everything immediately, there’s no use in replaying this game. I thought this game was so cute so I’m actually kind of sad that the fun ends after 24 levels.

CONCLUSION

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