Please don’t let the dogs with grappling hooks game die

It’s a fundamental principle of the universe that two things make every video game better: dogs and grappling hooks. Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines (released last week on Switch, Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X) has both.

Developed by Medallion Games, GD:CC is a delicious 2D platformer with two different styles of play, depending on your lead pup: Pablo or Luna. Pablo is similar to Mario or Sonic, he stomps enemies with a light jump and smashes through platforms with a charged ground pound. Luna, by contrast, has a gun and a super dash. She is (and I say this as praise) the Shadow the Hedgehog of the duo.

Both dogs have, as promised, grappling hooks, which allow them to zip through environments, reach obscured spaces, and swing around for no greater purpose than having a good time. Of course, I wouldn’t be recommending a game to you off dogs and grappling hooks alone. The real appeal is the fantastic pacing — the Nintendo-esque way the creators build upon their ideas from one level to the next. Just look at this trailer.

The fact that Cosmic Canines itself builds on the original Grapple Dog, released in 2022, shows its creators are performing what’s commonly agreed upon as Smart Business in the games industry. They’re learning from previous projects, establishing a recognizable brand, incorporating crowd-pleasing mechanics and characters, and (most importantly) building a damn fine game loop. So why then does Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines have less than 100 reviews on Steam, a common sign of a game failing to find an audience?

The obvious answer is “game glut.” I’ll spare you another treatise on the game industry’s outsized supply issues, though I will note that Cosmic Canines is another bullet point in that ongoing argument: its developers released the game last week on the Nintendo Switch alongside more than 70 other games. With that many new releases, plus backlogs, and live service games, it’s a miracle any new game finds an audience.

We can’t fix that issue today. But we can play great games when they get pulled out of the mountain of competition. And Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines is a great game.