Anything who wants to learn a little bit about the Nintendogs fad of the mid-2000s, Little Friends: Puppy Island is your game. The game is a very relaxing pet simulator with a unique main-player loop and a few minigames to go with. There isn’t much meat at the game, but sour puppies are the most useful creatures in the game. You always enjoy puppy life and you will need to find out.

The condition of Little Friends is exactly what it sounds like: they are on a beautiful island of friendly animals. You and your puppy are there to house-sit a friend. And if you want to explore the island and even befriend a large puppy while you’re there, they are there for yourself. You will find new areas for the first time on the island, thanks to the puppies. It’s all for the young, obviously. You’re really barebones, doesn’t make much sense, but it’s not actually important. The game has a story about some kind and its cohesive enough, more than anyone ever wanted to love in the pet world.

What makes the game a lot of fun is you pick up one of your puppy friends and walk them around the island. We find new puppies and make friends with them, build a shop and a dog park, and we also find new areas of the island to explore. After a while your pup is going to get hung up or dirty or just need a little love. We need to return to the house of your friends for help. That’s rather slow-lived. Cleaning and feeding, as long as you stay on the trail. It slowed down a lot, not even the big majority of the game. However, there was something to help break up the monotony.

One of the best things about Little Friends: Puppy Island is the obstacle that you can cross on the road and make fun of the little minigames. They pose some pretty hurdles, and all of them take 10 seconds to complete. However, they keep you engaged and are so cute since they’re dog-themed. The type of minigame really changes depending on the kind of obstacles, which is a nice way to keep things fresh.

Filmed via Siliconera.

There are few more minigames on the trail. Befriending puppies involves finding them and approaching them slowly, not forcing them to spook them by moving very quickly. Whenever you try to get to wild animals like squirrels, you’ll stop your puppy from barking by pressing the right button. Only development projects are fetch quests (heh), with you finding materials, and building projects. None of it is difficult by a means, but it gives you something to do.

You get to the other side of Little Friends: Puppy Island and getting to give it a look. This game was a lot of fun because there are lots of different pieces of clothing to choose from. It’s very easy to spend a lot of time looking at all your options and taking each of your dogs to the right outfit. I’m in my own opinion, but putting shutter shades on one of my little buddies was one of the best decisions I have made in my career. As far as we know, there are many types of dog breeds on the island, but some more options are available to choose from and find a dog to dress up, and also how to shake the stick with.

Screenshot via Siliconera.

You also can bathe, feed and play with your pups, and that’s quite neat because doing that actually affects the game. Just as your pups walk the trail, they’re getting dirty and hungry. Bathing and feeding them solve those problems and let you get back on the trail. It’s not amazing activities you have to constantly do, so I found that bathing a little unnecessary when using the dog, is done the same way like washing them, but they integrating into the whole system is nice.

Via Siliconera video.

While playing helps build your puppies’ confidence, you can play one more of them. You need to get more strength in your way, to improve the speed of the game, hence giving a strong sense of progression. In the end, the stats do not improve as you walk, so there is no grinding to do, and those not playing with the least amount of fun to do, like that the mini-game is too much for a dog to bark. You’re not kidding, even petting them reveals statistics, because what is a pet sim if you don’t love your little buddies?

Little Friends: Puppy Island is a comfortable and enjoyable place, but it wasn’t quite as good as this game to play in a long time. This is a simple, relaxation-and-unwind game, or a game designed for kids who like to do all the things with their puppies. It didn’t really hurt it, but it didn’t take long to really feel like it was getting repetitive. I almost assumed that I was getting very close to playing for 45 minutes or an hour. Yet, what a good game anyone seeking some downtime can enjoy in short spurts?

Little Friends: Puppy Island is available now via Steam for Nintendo Switch and PC.