Puzzle Puppers (2017)

It's not going to set the gaming world on fire, but Puzzle Puppers is a nice little game to work your grey matter on the Switch. It helps that its puppies are adorable.

Puzzle Puppers is a very simple game about some very cute dogs. Its bright colours and bizarre premise are endearing, the gameplay is easy to grasp, and you'll be in hound heaven for the first 20 stages or so. After a while however, this old dog shows that it hasn't learned any new tricks, and the repetitive visuals don't do anything to elevate the equally repetitive gameplay. It's good clean fun, straightforward to an absolute fault, and for the low asking price there's enough here to make this worthwhile. If you're expecting a magical doggy story mode, or some imaginative level design however, you'll be left feeling a little ruff.

Puzzle Puppers achieves what it sets out to do with aplomb. It’s an irreverent puzzler with animal-like charm which is fun to play for all ages and all skill levels, at all times. It functions as an intense workout for your brain or something to fill those short gaps between jobs. It does so whilst allowing you to play with dogs at the same time and, quite frankly, who wouldn’t want that?

With more ideas, more obstacles, more varied goals, or just the ability to pet the dogs without screwing up one of my solutions-in-progress, I could easily see this as best in show. Instead, Puzzle Puppers wouldn't even place.

Puzzle Puppers is a good, solid game that shouldn't take too much time to get value out of. It's one of those games that won't keep you busy for days on end, but is nice to pick up and play for some pretty clever brain teasers. It does good on providing a warm, loveable aesthetic while providing quick and easy gameplay.