PHOGS!

Review

PHOGS is a family-friendly puzzle platformer. The game revolves around two attached dogs and their starchy adventures.

Play and control both at the same time to traverse around the fun goofy world. Use both of your dog heads to control and manipulate items to solve puzzles and overcome platforms.

Gameplay: PHOGS! Let's you play as two attached dogs and now you must help them throughout this goofy awkward world full of puzzles and platforms.

PHOGS’s gameplay seems to be targeted towards every age; the game seems pretty childish and my initial impression was that it was for children. But no! The puzzles and platformer elements are intuitive enough for adults to enjoy as well.

The gameplay is super-simplified with its WASD to control blue-collared dogs and Arrow keys for pink. Use space to interact items with the blue-collared dog and right control for pink.

There are puzzles, platformers, and obstacles scattered around everywhere. And you will have to use a dog, or both at the same time, to interact with items to complete the puzzles or interact with a platform.

The world revolves around these puzzles; each is well made and well placed, and all of them serve a purpose.  At no point did I feel that anything was out of place, or that the game’s target audience might not appreciate this.

For an example: At the very beginning, you will need to raise four platforms from different floors of the beginning stage to be able to travel to different parts of the map. And in order to get to these platforms, you will have to go through a prescribed number of other platforms and puzzles.

Some were as easy as placing a ball in a triggering switch, while a bit of a tricky one that requires you to use both of your dogs to reach a peak while strong winds are blowing. 

Although there are a ton of puzzles and things to interact with, the good thing is they are very simple and tasteful. Even my 8-year-old cousin took a few moments to figure out the trickiest one, which is great! You don’t need stupid hard puzzles and platforms to enjoy a game; you need smart and well-placed ones.

Another feature that is important and plays out quite well in a goofy way is stretching. By hitting Left and Right Shift, you can stretch the dogs and hit space/right control at the same time to grab on to items and switches to complete various tasks.

For example, there are two switches far apart that you will have to interact with at the same time to start a function. Simply stretching the dogs and hitting grab at the same time will engage with the said switch.

World design: Beautiful, colorful, and joyful is what my 8-year-old cousin said while playing, and I agree. There is a certain level of charm to this goofy cartoonish art style. And combined with its great visuals and relaxing environment, the game felt very good while playing.

The only downside to PHOGS’ world design would be its awkward terrain and elements scattered along the pathways, which created quite a few minor annoyances throughout the game.

Music and sound effects: Well-selected and implemented; fits the theme of the game just fine (but the music did get repetitive after a while).

Puzzles: Easy, intuitive, and well designed. I’m saying this again . . . puzzles don’t need to be crazy hard or stupid, they need to be clever and well balanced. I must say PHOGS did a decent job at it.

The puzzles didn’t hinder the flow of my gameplay. They were well integrated with the world design, easy enough for the kids to enjoy and clever enough to grab my attention.

Considering all aspects of the game, PHOGS turned out to be a fun family-friendly platformer with a clever mixture of puzzles throughout its world. I played it with a young cousin of mine to get his perspective; it seems like the kid loved it, and rightfully so! A fun world design, goofy cartoonish art style, clever puzzles, and amazing visuals.

Although a decently sized game, there is not much replay-ability which is something to consider as well.

Review written by BiteMexD for Zeepond.com!