I appreciate when the game tries to offer something to do every day. I like when they try to keep things short. Not overwhelming can help a lot. Pupperazzi, unfortunately, ends up being a game with control problems. It determines how much you can do in a not-so-satisfying way. Sadly, what feels like is not as finished as other recent photography games like New Pokemon Snap, Toem, or The beasts of the island of Maravilla.. While it provides the basics one can expect, its speed limits one and I have had errors both when playing on Windows and Mac.
Pupperazzi As the name suggests, is a game about taking pictures of dogs. Everything you do is in the name of that goal. Get new camera gear. Share photos. Take on simple tasks like cleaning up the skate park. It’s all about the fangs. You can go to five locations at different times of the day to take those pictures. Make requests. Make a name for yourself. It is even possible to feed all dogs. When you gain followers, you have the ability to do things like take selfies, dress your dog, buy different lenses, and collect more movies. You can also visit at different times of the day.
Sadly, it’s not always possible to do that. PupperazziThe pacing let me down. Take for example the introduction. After taking the Sea Dog photo, you get a few requests. You can unlock the store. Explore a small area. The point is if you take pictures, it doesn’t matter how cute or nice you might think they are. Share too much and instead of comments that are encouraging or helpful, you will get “spam”. It will tell you that you are posting too much and you need to stop. It is not recommended. (Going to a new region allows you to repost, but you’ll eventually hit that limit again.) Since it looks like this should be a free-form game you play at your own pace, that’s really annoying.
Speaking of “your own pace”, it controls that too. You are limited when it comes to what you can do every day. You cannot move through missions at your own pace. They don’t autofill when you complete one. Time in the real world needs to pass. Only then can you do more. Again, frustrating. There are many things you can do. But you can not. Because the game won’t let you. Which means you may have taken pictures of things you need for a later date, but don’t have them for that moment. You only get about three requests per day per region. Once done, you’re done.
I also lament the lack of an encyclopedia. In games like The beasts of the island of Maravilla or New Pokemon Snap, you are building a collection. You put together galleries of beautiful photos. You’re learning a little bit about what’s there. You can see detailed information about the birds in an area of Maravila. Pupperazzi there is Puppypedia, but it doesn’t work in the version that I’m playing. It has the task of tracking species, actions and even hats. But it doesn’t automatically add these items when I take a picture. So I don’t know what level of detail it provides regarding them.
I also warn Mac users not to buy Pupperazzi when released. I played it on a Windows PC and (attempted to) play it on a MacBook Air. Now, I’m using Big Sur. This means it can crash with 32-bit games. However, prior to launch, I kept running into all sorts of issues during the development build. Sometimes, the picture will not display correctly or the text may not display. If you use a PC, you should be fine. But my Mac experience ended up being barely playable. (You can see one of the screenshots I took below, complete with the error code in the box at the bottom.)
The idea is sound enough. Pupperazzi amusing. Dogs are everywhere. They are cute and silly. I just don’t appreciate how much control it exerts on the player. It allows us to let loose in a colorful world with lots of places to explore and dogs to see. It seems counterintuitive to not give us the freedom to enjoy all of that whenever and wherever we want.
Pupperazzi available on Xbox One and PC via Steam. It’s also on Xbox Game Pass.
