Review: iPuppy, (Free, $1.99), MASQ Interactive, iPhone

Pet your puppy, stat!

Addicted to Nintendogs?  Love Pet Society on Facebook?  Raised on Neopets?

Throw away you DS and get your fix with iPuppy, the iPhone app that lets you raise, pet, feed, and tend to a cute yappy dog in your pocket.  For now, iPuppy, is the best pets app you can get.  Comes in Chihuahua, Siberian Husky, and Schnauzer, for now.  However, though the 3-D effects are pleasant and it’s a nice substitute for Nintendogs, the globally best-selling DS game several years running, it feels a little primitive and unimaginative of the iPhone’s capabilities.

Initially, you are granted $500 and use that budget to buy your pet treats, clothing, and toys.  This is the main design for Pet Society on Facebook.  However, for most pet owners, playing with budgets, like figuring out how many $20 dog bones you can buy with $250, isn’t why they keep a pet.  We keep pets for the rewards of gaining Doggy and Kitty’s eternal love when we give them simple things like a cuddle, a pat, a cookie, strokes of the brush, a bubble bath, a walk, a hug.

Artistically, I think iPuppy could be even more realistic, with bigger, close-up graphics, more ambitious and creative uses of colors for the pets and accessories.   The other artistic direction would be cartoonish avatars a la Pet Society, produced by Playfish.

iPuppy is OK for now.  I think the next big game based on pets will focus more on owner and pet bonding.  Pets will grow based on time, love, and interaction, not economic transactions.