Pupperazzi (Xbox One)
Dogs don’t really need to do much to be the subject of countless pictures so a game like Pupperazzi already has an easy time selling the idea of taking photos of man’s best friend. On the other hand, taking the simple and quick process of snapping a photo of your pet and turning it into a video game does raise questions on how it can be made more interesting, and while Pupperazzi does have a few ideas on how to pose and position dogs in situations you’ll only find a fictional setting, it still seems like it’s relying pretty hard on the inherent adorableness of its subject matter to carry much of the experience.
Pupperazzi is a game all about taking pictures of dogs, but they aren’t quite in the world we know. While they all look like familiar breeds and walk around spaces clearly meant for human habitation, they appear to occupy a post-human world where dogs are now free to play arcade games, surf, and drive cars about even though they still look and behave like the canines we know in reality. There are humanorphs, some artificial humans created to help maintain this world, but even you are not a person but instead a camera with arms and legs who is going about taking photos to post to dogNET, a social media service for sharing pictures. There isn’t much of an effort to explain how this world came to be likely to keep things silly and lighthearted, what little story there is coming from the photo requests you receive that guide you to take certain kinds of photos for small rewards. There is an ending that will be available well before you can complete all of the requests, but it feels like Pupperazzi doesn’t want to really apply any pressure to the player so the ending is easy to quickly acquire without having to do too much to reach it.
The areas in Pupperazzi are available at different times of day although you’ll need to unlock such variations, but the locations are at least suitably varied despite being few in number. A city with a large park, a seaside lighthouse, and a boardwalk comprise some expected locations, but there are only two other spaces to explore and the time changes mostly just change dog positioning and if a few things like fireflies at the park are active. The pooches themselves can be found behaving pretty normally or engaging in unusual activities, it not hard to find dogs just running around a space while others might be doing things like running a yogurt stand or standing on playground equipment. Many of their animations are deliberately basic, a dog coming towards you not with a sprint but a stiff-legged hop which is likely meant to look cute in its simplicity. They can make a few different expressions at least and the colorful cartoon style does help with giving them a pleasant and adorable appearance, but while it is amusing to see the dogs assuming rigid positions as they skateboard or ride bikes, it does limit how they can engage with other objects like their dances to music often just being hops or rolling around. You can still find enough interesting positioning, but the dogs do lose some of their liveliness by being locked into such animation limitations.
There is some interactivity involved in either spending time with the dogs or trying to set up more interesting photos. You can pet them, play fetch, and even change their clothes fairly easily, and your reward for completing requests are often gold bones that go towards buying new items from vending machines for such play. You can also unlock these by finding them in the world and some are a bit unusual like a robot vacuum that will make dogs nervous or a violin you can play to make them cry, but beyond changing expressions most of these items are there to be held in the dog’s mouth or used for fetch, meaning the level of interactivity with your picture subjects ends up being rather small. Pupperazzi is often more about finding dogs already doing interesting things rather than being the cause of such things yourself and this does limit the range of the photo taking requests in what they’ll ask of you. Often they’ll ask you to find some unique situation in a level or request you use specific film or lenses for your shot, these also available for purchase with your gold bones but sometimes unlocked by completing a request. The film types do give the world a new tint or mood with a wide range of colors and temperatures available eventually, but the lenses feel undercooked as only the pixel one gets much play in the requests and even a fisheye lens doesn’t have the greatest impact on the image in the end.
The requests do give you some direction at least, and even if you are taking pictures purely because you found something interesting you want to preserve, there is your own personal album to build up and the dogNET service you can post them to. Getting followers on dogNET is required for progress and when you enter a level the social media service will have certain preferences for what they want to see. You’ll get more likes and followers if you cater to these desires, although they are often fairly easy to please. If people are craving artistic pictures you can just leave a film tint on and if they’re looking for dog fashion you won’t have to search hard for a pooch already wearing some clothing. Still, spamming the service with pictures of pups will eventually lead to you getting no more followers or likes, the game encouraging you to move onto a different level for a while with this limitation. A Puppypedia perhaps provides the better long term goal as you need to get a photo for each item, dog breed, and piece of clothing listed in its pages to get a silly little description of what the dogs believe about them. This consistent little hunt on the side of completing simple requests and searching out good pictures for dogNET actually ends up totaling up rather nicely, the individual activities perhaps being too basic on their own but when you’re scoping out cute canines in an area there are at least enough considerations up in the air on what you’re looking for that you don’t just run in, snap the photos needed for your requests, and zip along to the next activity.
The calm, low pressure experience is likely the intended appeal of Pupperazzi in the end. Very rarely will a request even be hard to figure out and even the ones asking you to submit your best picture will take pretty much whatever you offer them with no complaint. It’s not so shallow you can snap pictures mindlessly, the framing sometimes important in regards to things like close-ups, and there is a bit of fun in discovering what can be found in a location that’s worthy of your camera’s attention. It is definitely basic but still relaxing and wholesome despite the actual interactive side of it being fairly shallow.
THE VERDICT: Adorable, silly, and simple, Pupperazzi is pretty much just about taking some cute pictures of pups and not much more. The animals might sometimes be positioned in amusing ways, but the lack of any true photo grading makes taking pictures low pressure so you can focus instead on indulging your desire to snap cute photos rather than meet stringent criteria. With the requests asking fairly little of you and the dogs not being too interactive though it does keep Pupperazzi from being a more fulfilling photography game but the simple goals and dogNET at least keep it from being too hands-off in guiding play.
And so, I give Pupperazzi for Xbox One…
An OKAY rating. Light on content and not having much to challenge you with, Pupperazzi angles for a calming quick experience you maybe put on for a night when you don’t want to commit to anything demanding. It provides a gentle world with a goofy atmosphere, the dogs fairly close to reality but still somehow doing skateboard tricks, but it does limit its potential by staying so simple. If the game was willing to include some sort of scoring or judgment system for photos to reward interesting and well taken shots, it could have perhaps leaned into more animated and interactive animals, the hounds you hang out with able to look cute enough but doing more than standing on strange things or holding things in their mouths could really hold the player’s attention better. Once you do start making your way through requests you’ll find the range of actions the dogs engage in rather limited. More locations would have allowed to continue the addition of fresh new posing opportunities for the pups but as is the game instead leans on different times for its handful of locations. It’s a shame too that simple actions like a dog sleeping don’t mirror their real life counterparts, it funny to see them rigidly lay on their side once but more of the kind of behaviors we see in reality from our beloved pets could have kept Pupperazzi entertaining even longer as we try to find them in-game.
Price point is going to be the real conundrum for potential Pupperazzi players. It’s very short but sweet and silly, but it’s definitely leaning more on cute looks that substantial play, and even within the limited niche of photography games there are a good amount that promise cute subjects but more involved interaction or photo grading. Pupperazzi is a lighter experience deliberately but actually buying into it might be hard to justify, but if it comes across your way, it does deliver on its simple promise of photographing dogs and tries to keep that experience fairly casual so even less experienced players can enjoy it. It’s offerings may be a touch shallow, but it’s not unenjoyable, just a bit lean and not quite as compelling as it could have been.