A puzzle game.

January 8, 2012 1:41 AM

Puppy Shelter :(

It saves your progress so you can come back to it later. Playing through the game yields a more complete experience.

posted by lemuring (47 comments total)

Jesus H...

Why.
posted by spiderskull at 1:45 AM on January 8

FWIW, the ending does bring it all together.
posted by lemuring at 1:52 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Does anyone ever adopt them? Would answering that spoil the ending?
posted by tmt at 2:05 AM on January 8

It wouldn't spoil the ending, but hover here for the answer
posted by lemuring at 2:13 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Fuck the ":(", people need more of a warning. "This is an adorable puzzle game about putting down puppies. Adorable puppies."
posted by HopperFan at 2:15 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

:( Jack
posted by ACair at 2:19 AM on January 8

lemuring, how did you do that? is that a piece of tool tip type HTML?
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 2:44 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

using the abbr tag

posted by lemuring at 2:48 AM on January 8 [13 favorites]

thx lemuring.
posted by Hartham's Hugging Robots at 2:55 AM on January 8

My real name is Jack. I am in pieces here.
posted by Decani at 3:44 AM on January 8

I... I am not a puppy murderer...

I am NOT a puppy murderer!!!

I am NOT a puppy MURDERER!!!!

Forgive me, Jack...
posted by PROD_TPSL at 4:05 AM on January 8

them puppies be in heaven now

＿|￣|○
posted by Foci for Analysis at 4:09 AM on January 8

What the...

I don't even --

I spent 30 minutes of my life working my brain and killing little bits of my soul along with the virtual puppies for THAT ending?

There wasn't even point to it all, other than life isn't fair and bad things happen for no reason.

I didn't need to kill puppies to find that out!

Now if you'll excuse me I need to spend time with my cats.
posted by DuchessProzac at 4:35 AM on January 8 [5 favorites]

The other mini-games on this site also have similar emotional twists or gotchas. Lots of clever, if misanthropic designs.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:13 AM on January 8

I killed little pixelated puppies and felt nothing.
posted by Burhanistan at 5:58 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]

Burhanistan: "I killed little pixelated puppies and felt nothing."


As we would expect.
posted by HuronBob at 6:03 AM on January 8

Yes, because having empathy for pixelated icons is the same as going out and caring for real suffering animals.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:11 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

Here's another puppy.
posted by martinrebas at 6:34 AM on January 8 [20 favorites]

This is terrible. Not because it has me killing puppies, but because it's a boring puzzle game with a twist ending.
posted by codacorolla at 7:08 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Now if you'll excuse me I need to spend time with my cats.
posted by DuchessProzac at 12:35 PM on January 8

Your cats laugh at your weakness. Oh, the humanity.
posted by Decani at 7:44 AM on January 8

Can someone just spoil the twist ending so I don't have to keep killing puppies? Or is there no real twist to the ending other than that you keep killing puppies all the way through?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:54 AM on January 8

Twist ending spoiler using that fancy abbr thingy that lemuring used
posted by YAMWAK at 8:01 AM on January 8

Okay, that didn't work - sorry. Lemme use good old ROT13 - if it was good enough for my ancestors, it's good enough for me:

Nsgre gur svany yriry lbh zbir gb Nzrevpn naq unir gb yrnir lbhe orybirq chccl Wnpx oruvaq ng n furygre
posted by YAMWAK at 8:02 AM on January 8

Level 5. I could keep playing this stupid fucking game...

or I could go play with this guy.
posted by R. Schlock at 8:11 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

If you click at the intersections you can kill up to four puppies at once! (Given optimal puppy placement). I like finding the little nuances in game controls.
posted by SomeOneElse at 8:34 AM on January 8

Thanks. I have just harmed puppies again.
posted by klausman at 8:41 AM on January 8

Maybe if the puppies were cuter someone would adopt them. Who wants a purple pixelly thing like these?
posted by Nelson at 8:42 AM on January 8

YAMWAK: it worked for me!

Thank goodness I read these comments and didn't try to play this. We have two adorable foster dogs here right now, one ready to go out into the world, one still needing some TLC - so we really are doing our bit to save animals from the shelters.

(We got yesterday an application for Benji, the recovered one, where the couple in question had photoshopped his face into a picture of theirs! I have a good feeling about them...

(If anyone's in New York City and want to adopt the other one, a beautiful but very timid chihuahua mix, drop me a line - or any dog really, the organization who gives us the dogs has all types and are very responsible...)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:45 AM on January 8

I didn't need to kill puppies to find that out!

Not as long as there are people who feel the need to write video games that teach counter-ethical behaviors or at least that nothing you do matters! Now where's that rifle?

There was a race type board game at some competition somewhere that had you competing with other players to get cargo to it's destination. Only half way through the game they start dropping hints that the cargo is Jews and the destination is Auschwitz are Dachau or the like. (Cue sad trombone.) My immediate thought when I read this article was that the right move is, the moment you figure out how you're being played, is to smirk and then play to win as a loud "piss-off" to people who want to create little make-believe worlds with happy little train tracks leading to brightly colored concentration camps so they can shove some heavy handed ethical "lesson" down your throat with a giant plunger. It's obnoxious for exactly the reason why this is funny and that's despite the fact that plenty of guys in the wehrmacht who had no real clue about the concentration camps, but pretty much every employee of any railroad is capable of telling cattle car full of Jews from a gondola of coal.

I've played games where you have to make hard ethical choices and I've enjoyed them immensely. I've also taken corporate ethics training where the answers to the questions are, essentially:

A) Go ahead and offer the bribe you're obviously being shaken down for.
B) Split the difference, offer half the bribe and then stab some nuns.
C) Avoid paying the bribe by hacking a pentagon computer and starting world war three.
D) Refuse and report the incident to some corporate department of something blah blah blah etc.

It was almost exactly not like the games, except that in the games I didn't have to feel a little dirty because I wasn't helping some corporation try and dodge some kind of audit by being another data point on a massive training record somewhere. This almost makes me feel good about sitting through that training.

The second non-quoted sentence of this post is to be considered in a satirical manner and is not an endorsement of shooting people who design crappy video games however much they might deserve it.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:01 AM on January 8 [8 favorites]

But what I want to know, Kid Charlemagne, is would you push the fat guy off the bridge to stop the train?
posted by Decani at 9:19 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Get behind me Satan! I reject your empty physics engine!
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:40 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

Ah, this is a game made for the Ludum Dare 48 hour game jam. The theme was "Alone" which was pretty broadly interpreted, I ended up making a game where you had to collect ghost kittens and lead them out of a dungeon (shameless self link), which was more upbeat than what I tried to make in the first place.

would you push the fat guy off the bridge to stop the train?

Something I'd like to see in a game: moral choices as quicktime events.
posted by hellojed at 10:42 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]

PUSH X TO DECIDE WHO DIES
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 10:47 AM on January 8

I wonder if it might be because I don't own any dogs, but the ending drove home the responsibility that comes with pet ownership for me.

After playing it, I thought to myself, "Getting a dog is knowing you're going to be there for that animal until it's last breath." I've never known that before, and perhaps would've shrugged at the idea of giving a dog away to a shelter if I was moving away.

"I'm sure he'll find a great owner," I'd tell myself.
posted by lemuring at 10:51 AM on January 8

I didn't need to kill puppies to find that out!

Perhaps you should. I have been inspired by the methods of the animal rights activists.
posted by Decani at 11:33 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

The more I think about this - it's not even hard to imagine a game where you run the pet shelter and have to put down adorable puppies.

But you can do different things trying to get more money for dog food so you have fewer puppies to put down; Or try to get more people to adopt puppies so you don't have so many puppies to feed so you have fewer puppies to put down; Or run try to convince people to get their pets spayed or neutered so there are fewer unwanted puppies so you have fewer puppies to put down....

Really make people think about the cause and effect nature of these things.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:38 AM on January 8

Well, it's morally superior to Grand Theft Auto, dangit (and get off my virtual 8-bit lawn).
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:44 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

I think this game should have had at least a few puppies get adopted, so that you didn't get an overwhelming sense of helplessness. There would be puppies that are statistically likely to get adopted vs puppies that are never adopted. At the end it would reveal that your puppy is one of those not likely to get adopted, thus excessively yanking at the player's heartstrings.

Oh my gosh, i'm a monster
posted by hellojed at 12:04 PM on January 8

I am sure a lot of effort and feeling went into producing this game, and I admire the creator for investing as much in it as he did. The moral lessow ow owowow ow got a cramp fuck

ow fuck
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 12:22 PM on January 8

oh nvm its one of those time limit ones so makes more sense its going to be shovelware

although someone should either start a tumblr parodying this kind of thing or make one of these retraux pixelart games but it turns out to have a real story and a lot of actual effort put into it like Cavestory or La Mulana
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 12:51 PM on January 8

retraux pixelart games but it turns out to have a real story and a lot of actual effort put into it like Cavestory or La Mulana

The ultimate twist. You may like Treasure Adventure Game.
posted by codacorolla at 12:53 PM on January 8

lemuring: Cool about the abbr tag, but note that w3schools is considered harmful.
posted by JHarris at 1:43 PM on January 8

Hey, did you notice that at the end of the level you can just hold down the mouse button and drag to put down puppies? Yeah, just whip that bad boy over the grid and you can clear like a dozen of 'em in a second.

Anybody got a video capture card handy so I can post a speed-run?
posted by sourcequench at 2:50 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

thx codacorolla

also i thought of another one, with no real story but genuine effort: yume nikki
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:06 PM on January 8

You can kill the dogs even faster if you hold down the mouse button and just mouseover.

Also, the main puzzle mechanic was… ambiguous and confusing? My main pound is that I just moved them around and watched their faces and swapped as appropriate.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:01 PM on January 8

I'm having a lot of trouble with the final puzzle. Frankly I don't care enough to figure it out; I just want to see the end! Is there a solution on the web somewhere?
posted by matt_arnold at 6:05 PM on January 9

@Kid Charlemagne: The game you're referring to is known as Train, by the esteemed Brenda Brathwaite.
posted by Han Tzu at 11:28 PM on January 12