Pup Champs

Pup Champs is a tactics-inspired puzzle game about helping a young team of puppies score goals on a soccer field. In each level, the field is segmented into a small grid, and you have to coordinate the pups and use their respective strengths to score a goal by the end of their allotted moves. With its straightforward design and its heartwarming art direction, Pup Champs intends to appeal to both puzzle newcomers and confirmed players.

The game gives you control of a team of aspiring soccer players who must work around each level’s obstacles to score a goal. Each pup gets a limited number of moves they can make on the pitch (as defined by their coach for methodical training), leading to stepping puzzles with reduced movement options. As a matter of fact, the pups are given the precise number of moves needed to clear each level, no more, no less, so this acts both as a challenging constraint and as a guide to finding the optimal, essentially unique solution.

The pups can move around the field in turns; most often there will be two of them in the level, and sometimes up to three or four in difficult levels. Each pup can be considered a special unit with their own technique for kicking the ball. For instance, the Shiba Inu pup sends the ball upwards to the second next cell in front of them, which can help bypassing leaf piles or evading opponents. And the labrador pup strikes the ball in a straight line, which works great from a distance, but will fail if there’s an obstacle in the way.

Whenever a puzzle involves two pups or more, chances are you’ll have to pass the ball from one player to another — soccer is a team sport after all. There are a few subtleties to passing the ball which enrich the game’s logic. Other mechanics are regularly introduced to mix things up, with easy tutorial levels to learn about them first. Notably, opponents with turn-based behavior join the puzzles by the middle of the game; you’ll have to manipulate them based on their own movement quirks to clear your way to the goal. If you’ve cornered yourself into a bad situation, you can just undo your previous moves as many times you want.

Pup Champs takes place over a full year of training, and the seasons change as you go through the levels. A number of cute motion comics provide short but endearing narrative beats between each set of puzzles. Aside from the main sets, the game also offers multiple bonus puzzles which are significantly more difficult. Keeping in mind the state of each player as you study every possible step can feel daunting at times, but usually you can deduce the scoring pup and their final position based on their special kick, so visualizing things backwards should eventually net you the full solution.

This description was written by Oriane Tury.