Dogpile is a roguelike deckbuilder with shades of Tetris and Balatro that has me trying to make the biggest dog of all

After a few games of deckbuilding roguelike Dogpile, my goal is crystal clear: I want – nay, need – to make the biggest canine possible. With a yard laid out before me, cards showing different cartoon doggos of varying sizes are drawn from my deck. Dragging a card down plucks the pooch out of the card, and I can send them floating down to the bottom of the yard — Tetris-style. When two of the same dogs touch, they merge to become a larger breed, earning me points in the form of bones in the process.

With different point milestones to try to achieve in order to visit the dog wash and get upgrades for the next subsequent round, failing to earn enough will put me in the doghouse – where I'll be forced to choose some bad traits to bestow upon my mounting pile of pups. Any time I succeed at merging my four-legged friends and watch as they transform before my eyes, I'm immediately hit with serotonin. From two tiny chihuahuas that combine to become a Bichon Frisee-like puffball, to eventually merging two large greyhounds, I audibly gasp with joy when a rotund old English sheep dog takes up a big portion of my yard.

But the in-game glossary tells me there are still some large breeds I've yet to unlock, and so my joyous quest to see the biggest dog of all continues.

Pet shop toys

The different upgrades you can earn by acquiring enough bones, together with the Dog Tags you can buy at the pet shop, bring to mind the card modifiers in Balatro.

One dog tag I purchase during my third dogpiling run, for example, is known as Bouncy Castle, and pinning it to the collar on the right-hand side of the screen makes all the pups I plant in my yard bouncy. It turns out this is a very useful modifier to have, since each and every time I drop a pooch into the fray, they ricochet off the fences and often find their way to a dog of their kind to merge without me having to worry too much about placement.

Then, later, I splash cash on another tag labelled Roll Over just for the fun of it, and together with the Bouncy Castle, I serendipitously activate a potent combination.

Each time my card deck shuffles, the Roll Over tag flips my yard, and since my dogs are very bouncy, my Dogpile gets royally shaken up. My pups practically fly as the dogpile flips, and as they bounce back down and crash into each other, my screen becomes a hive of activity as bones burst onto my screen and dogs become bigger dogs.

Puppy power

But even though this turns out to be a very effective combo, it does mean that I have less control over my growing dogpile. My yard only has a finite amount of space, and the more cards that are dealt, the more careful I have to be about where I send each dog, lest I pile them too high and they overflow.

With a cut off point at the very top of the yard, any dogs that cross this barrier sets off a 10 second timer, and should the clock run out, it's game over and I'll have to start a new game. And herein lies the challenge: when you're trying to make the biggest dog, you have to make other big dogs in the process, but there's only so much space to play with.

But the many different tags and upgrades you can buy or earn constantly make each roguelike run feel fresh. Not to mention the bad traits you can pick up in the dog house, which can negatively alter a dog's behavior, or even throw a rock into the mix to take up precious space. In the pet shop, you can also purchase new cards to add to your deck, and some have incredibly useful abilities – such as leash which allows you to pull a dog back up from the pile to place them back down in a better position. All of these features work together to present new challenges and unexpected buffs that keep me coming back time and again.

Time absolutely slips by me as I start new games, and every time I see that game over timer run out thanks to my high pile, I'm presented with stats that serve to motivate me further. Showing me the number of hands played, the goals I've met with my bones, how many dogs I've dropped and merged, and more, I instantly want to see if I can up my score.

I still haven't managed to unlock the biggest dog of them all yet, but you better believe I'll keep on piling up the dogs until I do. Oh, and I feel it's very important to tell you that you can pet the dogs any time you like. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can finally combine some old English sheepdogs.

Dogpile is out now on PC. For more of our highlights, head on over to our Indie Spotlight series.