Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes with me, will know that my attention can be easily distracted by any form of fuzzy animal – be that in video games or just while walking down the street. I’m a sucker for animals, to the point where my default in any game is to pet anything and everything that will let me. I’ve always had more of a connection with animals than I have with people, partly due to my struggles with understanding the intentions behind other’s actions and partly due to my heightened empathy, which can overwhelm me to the point of breakdown.
Cats hold a special place in my heart. Amusingly, I’ve often been described as more of a cat than a human. This is often because I have an uncanny ability to befriend the more skittish felines. Much to one of my best friends’ confusion, I managed to get his extremely shy cat who wouldn’t stay in a room with him for long periods of time, to rub herself against my feet within a day of meeting her. Praise be CaitlinRC, the cat whisperer. Hence why my only flaw with Assassins Creed Syndicate is that you can’t pet the cats that wander around London’s streets. LET EVIE CUDDLE A CAT YOU COWARDS. Thankfully, video games will often let you pet the dogs. If they didn’t let me praise these good boys and girls, then I’d probably be in prison under arson charges. #NoRegrets
Any game that has you controlling animals, immediately skyrockets to the top of my “to play” list. PHOGS, the game we are talking about today, has been on my radar for a while now. I got a chance to play it back at EGX Rezzed last year, with my good friend Ellie. In PHOGS, you and a partner play a pair of goofy dogs, attached to one another through a very stretchy belly. One of you plays Red and the other plays Blue, so you must work together to solve a variety of puzzles in order to progress through the bright and colourful world that you find yourself in. Though you can play PHOGS solo, I’d recommend playing it with a friend or a family member, as a lot of the joy comes from the interactions you have, the havoc you wreak on one another and the inevitable bark off that arises when you realise that you can press a button to bark.
Although it is a puzzle games, the puzzles themselves are not ridiculously difficult. By keeping the mechanics simple, PHOGS encourages you to be creative with your solutions, to try out new things and see how far that doggo can stretch. If you stumble across the answer whilst doing it, then great! The game itself is a very calming experience. There are no real “enemies” in PHOGS. Sure, there’s a few creatures and bits that your doggies don’t particularly like, but they aren’t major setbacks. This makes it a great game for parents to play with their children, especially for kids who have a lot more trouble focusing than others. It teaches them about cooperation, logical thinking and puzzle solving, without punishing them for getting things wrong.
One thing that the game gets 100% right, is its colour palette. Colourful, vibrant and pretty but not overwhelming. When chatting with Jack at the PHOGS stand during EGX, I discovered that a lot of parents spoke very highly of the game, especially when they got to sit down and play it with their kids. For the parents of children on the autistic spectrum especially, the number of video games that they can play together without worrying about overstimulation, anxiety or frustration can be counted on the fingers on one hand. So, having a game like PHOGS, where the art style, music, gameplay and puzzle solutions are tailored to be accessible to all, is a breath of fresh air for all it’s players. Personally, I found PHOGS calming, providing me with a sense of peace and relaxation that I rarely get to experience for a prolonged period. For someone with anxiety, that can be a game changer.
Having games that are accessible, is majorly important. We touched on this in a bit more detail during our article about the gaming charity, Special Effect, last week. When chatting with Jack, it became clearly obvious that PHOGS is a massively accessible game that they hope that anyone and everyone can enjoy. When asked about further accessibility options, Jack was brilliant and told me about their plans to implement options for those who are red-blue colour blind. Being able to adapt, improve and open your game to every type of player, is a sign of a good developer. CoatSink, the company behind PHOGS are also behind Cake Bash, another colourful local coop game that has you take control of sentient desserts that fight one another to become the “most delicious”. (Bit dark when you think on it too much)
PHOGS isn’t out yet, with an estimated release date in early 2020 on basically every platform. Being able to watch its development and growth as a game has been a joy and I genuinely can’t wait to see how everyone reacts to it. The initial feedback from various game journalism publications such as Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun and GameSpace, have been outstandingly positive, so if you don’t believe me, go check out their pieces about PHOGS.
Anyways, I’ve got to go do more coursework, so look out for another piece soon and leave any feedback, suggestions or personal experiences in the comments! Like, comment, follow the site and our Twitter @OurMindGames for updates on all future content!
– CaitlinRC.