Haunted Paws is bringing puppy-powered chaos to co-op gaming
As someone in a long-distance relationship with the Atlantic separating my fiancé and me, I’m always looking for games that let us connect despite the miles between us. We met in a video game, so it's only fitting that we continue to spend quality time playing them together, and one that we’ve both been excited about is Haunted Paws.
Haunted Paws, by LazyFlock, is a game designed specifically for two players where you have to work together to overcome obstacles and navigate a spider-infested world. Playing as two dogs (or a dog and a cat in a dog costume), you head off on one hell of an adventure to figure out what happened to your owner. And it is utterly adorable.
Shout out to the developers for putting the arachnophobia options front and center; my fellow spider-phobes and I salute you.
Who will give us treats now?
Haunted Paws starts out with a mystery: your owner is missing, there’s a smashed window involved, and an inexplicably frozen spider is in the fridge. In a world where all those things are true, there’s only one thing for it: the dogs (or cats, we don’t judge) need to take charge, turn detective, and stage a rescue attempt.
And that rescue attempt is anything but straightforward. From the moment you set out into the big wide world outside the apartment, there are obstacles and people who seem hell-bent on getting between you and your goal. To get past them, you need to use the environment to create paths or solve puzzles that distract people, all while working together to get the job done.
As far as the demo is concerned, your adventure takes you as far as the dog food factory, which has been overrun by critters with way too many legs and a worrying desire to chomp down on canine (or feline) flesh. There are plenty of moments of peril, but between them, there are so many strange and wonderful moments of joy that you just want to keep playing to find more of them.
I can see the future
I’m no stranger to reading where a story will go, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as spot on with a guess as I was at one point during the Haunted Paws demo. We met a man who was fixing his car, helped him find his tools, and he seemed all ready to set off, except his leg was broken and he said he couldn’t drive.
So jokingly, I said, “Well, one of us could do the pedals and the other could steer.”
A minute later, I’m working the gas and brake pedals while my fiancé mans the steering wheel like he’s had ten beers. Meanwhile, we’re both screaming in panic every time a corner comes up. There’s nothing that will get two people working together quite like splitting a usually one-person job into a task for two, and this is the perfect example of that.
After we dropped him off, the man told us we could keep the car, just moments after I’d asked aloud whether we’d get to keep it, and we set off on our own down a long and incredibly windy road that no single person should ever have to navigate, let alone two small animals in the world on their own for the first time.
I’ve been following the development of Haunted Paws for a long time, and I’m so glad I finally got a chance to play the demo, and I’m so excited to play the full game with my other half when it gets released. Sadly, there’s no release date to report just yet, but you should definitely go and give the demo a try if you’ve got someone to join you!
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