As a dad of a young family, I’ve been steadily breaking my son into gaming – at the age my own parents let me pickup a controller for my first video game, Sonic the Hedgehog. My little boy is now 4 and a half and starting to acknowledge some of gaming’s stalwart characters including Mario, Sonic and others. I have let him dabble in Mario Kart World (with all the driving stabilisers!) as his first gaming entry and he’s had a lot of fun. But, I have been eager to welcome him to the gaming world how many of us cut our teeth – platformers.
Some of my modern favourites including Mario Odyssey and Sonic x Shadow Generations have caught his eye but I don’t think he’s quite ready for the 3D world yet. I’d been looking for something 2D and more accessible, so when publisher Mindscape Games serendipitously got in touch to offer a physical Switch copy of their new title, Dog Man: Bark in Action, I gladly took them up on their offer.
Dog Man: Bark in Action offers 60 completely replayable stages, across six ten-part chapters. The game lets you play as the main hound himself and two of his most well-known partners, Little Petey and 80-HD. A simple press of the shoulder button lets you change between the trio on the fly, each with slightly different abilities. If you’ve played games with kids, you’ll know how eager they are to change their character every few minutes, so this was very welcomed. Progressing through the game unlocks more abilities too, including a shrink ray for Little Petey and the ability to let Dog Man dig to progress and find extra collectibles. There’s a Dog Man story here too, it’s very basic and told in the cartoon style from which the franchise originates. My son enjoyed me reading the on-screen text to him, enabling him to understand there is more narratively to games than simply inputting buttons.
The game is entirely playable in 2-player couch co-op, with the ability to use a controller each or, like I did on my Switch 2, share the Joy-Cons. The lead player will play as Dog Man or his buddies. Whereas, the second player plays as a floating worm, who acts as a supporting, enabling character who can assist in collecting items and aiding progression. Player 2 is able to stun enemies, allowing for player 1 to use actual attacks like Dog Man’s throwing bones to eliminate them. And to aid platforming, you can temporarily morph into a small platform that Dog Man and co can hop on, this was particularly useful at some of the jump sections he found challenging.
I was pleased to see that the secondary support character wasn’t able to grab every item, leaving some level of skill required to grab all the game’s collectibles. With levels being entirely replayable, as your child’s skill level grows they will be able to come back to previous stages and reach what they couldn’t before. As with their education, it’s important to show young people how their development enables them to reach new heights. Securing collectible items will allow you to purchase new costumes for the characters which my son has particularly enjoyed changing.
Without the dexterity to take on many enemies or some of Bark in Action’s simplistic boss battles, it was nice to be able to turn down the difficulty level, which makes some platforming jumps easier and allows the lead player to take more enemy hits. Generous checkpointing means progress is also rarely lost.
After my first few hours with Dog Man: Bark in Action, I have been really impressed by all of the considerations given to how the game will be played, with children and their parents / carers. There’s even a reminder to take regular gaming breaks that helped me manage the amount of screen time. It’s a very easy, fun and approachable platformer that I look forward to playing more of together on lazy Sunday afternoons. I’ll also be playing a little more myself, hunting those collectibles that were a little tricky for a first-time platform player to grab.
Dog Man: Bark in Action is now available for Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, XBOX One and Series X|S and PlayStation 4/5. A physical copy is available for both PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch (also compatible with Switch 2).
GSC would like to thank the developer, Floor 84 Studio and publisher, Mindscape Games for sharing a Nintendo Switch physical copy of Dog Man: Bark in Action.
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