In Doggy Don’t Care, you’re a small puppy making a big mess

Doggy Don’t Care is a lovely, light-hearted puzzle platformer, but I can’t in good conscious recommend it for those with pet separation anxiety. For all its fun, funny puzzles, Doggy Don’t Care also inspires a panic about what could really happen if you left your adorable, sweet dog alone with enticingly breakable objects.

As the game’s events kick off, the innocent owner of Charlie the pug leaves their precious darling home alone, with the simple instruction to be safe, and to look after themselves. Per the title, the doggy simply don’t care and the moment the ‘hooman’ departs, all chaos breaks loose.

While seemingly sweet on the surface, Charlie the pug is actually buoyed by an inner rage and boredom that encourages them to smash everything in sight. To pull cords, crack glass, jump in petrol and mud, overflow the washing machine and tear apart socks.

Doggy Don’t Care is essentially a wrecking ball simulator.

You, as Charlie must create the most damage you can by experimenting with your surrounds, and figuring out the limits of your canine body. All you really had to do was stay quiet and enjoy the peace of your home life. But why do that when causing a hurricane is so much more fun?

Flying from puzzle to puzzle in Doggy Don’t Care

The scope of Doggy Don’t Care isn’t limited to chaos caused in the home. Once you romp through the many puzzles in the game’s opening stages, you’re sent to a variety of other locales – a farm, an office, a museum – all visited with the purpose of being one very messy, very mischievous doggy.

There’s a nice variety in the puzzles spread across these stages, as well as a neat delivery system. Inspired by the TV series Hey Duggee, players are presented with an array of badges to earn, with each requiring some puzzling.

In the home stage, puzzles concern domestic chaos – figuring out how to break glass doors and TVs, track mud across cars and even to shoot hoops, for a lighter bit of fun. Over on the farm, you’ll find various badges rewarding you for annoying the local wildlife, using machinery correctly, discovering hidden switches and performing various tricks.

The museum has some of the most fun puzzles, including several that require you to piece together activity from multiple badges, leading to a multi-step solution. These puzzles are never too obtuse or too simple, with just the right amount of head-scratching needed to parse what’s next.

Even when you get stuck, there is delight in the experimentation.

Charlie is a loveable protagonist, with his angry little eyebrows and bouncy, potato-like body. As you watch his tiny legs skitter, you’ll find plenty of joy in the way he runs, jumps and twirls through each location.

Light, breezy and simple gameplay

By nature, Doggy Don’t Care is a relatively simple game, and it revels in this simplicity. Rather then being some deep, frustrating puzzler, it maintains a silly and breezy tone throughout, refusing to take itself seriously at all.

While there are some moments in the game that suggest an attempt at a deeper approach – there are dream-like sequences between stages where Charlie must find his owner in surreal landscapes – they still work to propel the absurdity of the game and its playful, transportive nature.

Don’t think too deeply as you roam. If the doggy doesn’t care, then neither should you.

Approach this puzzle experience with an open mind and a desire for pure, unfettered joy, and it will deliver. You’re just a very small dog in a big wide world after all, and play is what you’re most concerned with.

Doggy Don’t Care is a very playful experience, and one that inspires a welcome burst of happiness and good vibes – as long as you don’t think about the aftermath of your actions.

Play freely. Cause chaos. In this likeable adventure, your worst deeds will lead to the best rewards. Doggy Don’t Care is buoyant and bouncy, and all the better for its devotion to rampant high chaos.

A PC copy of Doggy Don’t Care was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

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