Can Wigu Games make a dog’s home the next big management sim?

You may remember Wigu Games from our review of Doctor Life earlier this year. Well, Wigu is back with its latest game Canine Life and we caught up with them at Tokyo Game Show. Development of Canine Life is going smoothly; the game is currently in closed beta and Wigu hopes the test phase will be open by the end of the year. I played the beta of Canine Life and despite being far from complete, it looks great.

The thing that impressed me the most was Wigu’s response to criticism, and their focus on fixing the problems with their first game Doctor Life. I really enjoyed Doctor Life when it came out in February, I loved the art style, and I found the game to be exceptionally well-built, and good-looking. But there were some serious problems: firstly, the game was way too difficult for casual players and required a lot of memorization and quick thinking.

This isn’t inherently bad, but the game’s art style screamed casual, while the content required serious commitment, this is a difficult to pull off with a new IP. Secondly, the content was surprisingly adult, and though I had no problems with diagnosing people with bloody stools, I suspect more squeamish gamers might have. By far the worst problem was repetition and Doctor Life just didn’t have the variety needed to be someone’s go-to game for more than a couple of weeks. It was fun to diagnose and treat the first patient, it was less fun to fix the 18th sprained ankle that day.

Instead of being offended or defensive by criticism Wigu have used it to make Canine Life a more solid offering than its predecessor. Wigu explained that it has massively downgraded Canine Life’s difficulty so that it’s more “pick up and play” friendly, and they’ve made it so the content is cute dogs— not blood-drenched poop. A move destined to please parents everywhere.

By far the biggest success is Wigu’s assault on repetition. In Canine Life players will be able to level up dogs, scout for new dogs, and take care of other people’s dogs, all of which keep things fresh. But they didn’t stop there, andCanine Life will also include a selection of mini-games including racing and tricks to keep things interesting. Players will also be able to compete with their friends on online leaderboards to see whose dog is the best performer. This addition of variation is exactly what Wigu needed to do to make their next game a massive success.

One thing Wigu didn’t do was throw the good away with the bad, and Canine Life will be making use of Doctor Life’s strongest feature: its art-style. Doctor Life was bright, colorful, and wonderfully detailed, and Canine Life looks similar— but with dogs! Wigu has also carried over my favorite character from the first game, the evil tycoon. He is, without a doubt, one of the cutest villains ever and I can’t wait to see how he makes life difficult for the dog shelter owners!