“Journey through the Doggie Underworld in this heartwarming rhythm visual novel. Reunite with your lost Pup by connecting with other dog spirits, learning their stories, and lifting their moods through rhythm games full of charm and challenges!” – Steam Description

---

---

Puppergeist is a rhythm game visual novel where you play as Claire who is trying to find her recently deceased dog named Pup in the Doggie Underworld. Along the way Claire meets Lunne, a demon, and several other Puppergeists. Claire must complete various rhythm stages which include petting puppergeists, cleaning the apartment, playing fetch, etc. Each stage is a different rhythm game, but all you really need to do is press space (PC) or A (controller) at just the right time.

Each stage is delightfully drawn and animated, but some stages were difficult to determine when you should press the button. Some stages don’t have a lot of on screen guidance, and you are stuck relying on the beat to figure out where to go. I do not have a great track record of keeping a beat evenly paced in my head, if 10 years of band didn’t fix this then nothing will, so I struggled on some stages.

The game has a scoring system of Top Dog (Perfect), Good Boy (Good), and Woof (Bad), and during the gameplay you can tell whether you failed or passed each note. If you get Woof for a stage, then you can’t continue on with the story. Personally, I do think they should add a skip for people who get stuck on a stage. It’s me, I wanted a skip, the tug of war game almost broke me.

Overall, the game is extremely short. It took me 2.5 hours to complete the game, and get all the achievements. I could go back and replay the stages to get Top Dog in everything, but I don’t hate myself enough to do that.

• Graphics – The art and animation throughout the game is absolutely adorable. Every stage has an animated scene, and your character moves with the beat.
• Gameplay – Gameplay is to read the story, move the character to the next rhythm game, and play the minigame. Each level has a completely different rhythm game that is animated for your misses and successes. The animation and art are absolutely delightful to watch, and the variety of minigames is great. Unfortunately, the minigames are not always explained well in the practice sessions. The inputs do not consistently register and in some levels it is not always clear when you are supposed to press the spacebar. I did start the game on Steam Deck, but the calibration said my MS delay would be an issue. I continued playing anyway, but eventually had to switch to my PC due to frustration. Unfortunately switching to my PC did not solve all the input issues even after recalibration.
• Sound – The music is absolutely delightful to listen to. Each stage has a different song. All of the music is instrumental. I had fun listening to the music playing during the credits also.
• Controls – The controls are press space on keyboard & mouse or press A on controller. There is not a lot to the game.
• Story – There is a story, but it is extremely short. It’s very cute with some sad moments, but due to the length there is not a lot of depth.