Physics dog breeding sim Wobbledogs has left early access
Mutate some best friends
I like devlogs, those scrappy blogs where game creators crack open the egg of videogames to show you the yolk of development. The mistakes, the dead ends, the iterations; they illuminate the hardships of creation, and they're entertaining to boot.
I like dogs, too. I wrote as much when writing about the horrific rectangular dogmorphs of a particular devlog - doglog? levdog? - back in 2016. Those early GIFs would become Wobbledogs, a pet simulation in which you breed mutant dogs. It has now left early access.
In Wobbledogs, you start with a flock of pups, and then breed them. Traits get mixed and passed down, and your dogs develop physical and psychological quirks. You're also simultaneously building them a colourful terrarium, with rooms connected via vacuums and funnels - just like a real dogs home. It's silly, cute, glorious.
The 1.0 update adds a bunch, including Steam achievements, localisation into nine languages, a Doggy Launcher object to conveniently "toss your dogs around", and, uh, wings. "Dogs are about as good at flying as they are at walking!", says the full patch notes.
I have an unreasonable fondness for any game whose devlog I covered, whether via its own post or in DevLog Watch. It's an aw-I-knew-it-when response, but it's also a recognition of how hard videogame development is. About half the games I covered were never finished, and many of those that were finished weren't good. The "overwhelmingly positive" reviews for Wobbledogs on Steam suggests my affection here is not unfounded, at least.
Wobbledogs is available from Steam for £16/€20/$20.