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Chinese New Year - 6 iPhone games to help you celebrate the year of the dog

The year of the dog in games

Chinese New Year - 6 iPhone games to help you celebrate the year of the dog
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| Dig Dog

The Chinese New Year commences this Friday 16th February, heralding the year of the dog.

Famous dogs through have included David Bowie, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, and Mr President himself Donald Trump. No comment on that last one. The jokes write themselves.

To celebrate this Chinese New Year, then, we thought we'd highlight six smartphone games that feature prominently our canine chums.

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone.

Dig Dog

Does dog behaviour get any doggier than digging for bones? That's the core premise of Dig Dog, the newest entry to this list.

Dig Dog is an enjoyable roguelike platformer with elements of Downwell, Spelunky, and of course Dig Dug. Our doggy hero must dig its way through randomly generated levels in pursuit of that juicy bone.

Mimpi Dreams

Dogs are famed dreamers, as made apparent by the amusing array of tics and yelps they emit whilst asleep. It makes sense that someone made a game about those imagined canine dreamscapes.

This charming platform-puzzler places you directly into the dreams of a cute cute named - you guessed it - Mimpi. Think castles, dungeons, and pirate ships, all filled with gentle spatial puzzles to solve.

Silly Sausage: Doggy Dessert

Our four-legged friends tend to get into the unlikeliest of places. The proof is all over YouTube, if you're into wasting hours of your life watching animals do stupid things.

The dog you play in Silly Sausage: Doggy Dessert is more apt at wriggling through gaps than most. This mutt is highly flexible - just wipe the screen to set our pal stretching off across the level like a sentient piece of taffy.

Pug's Quest

If you're the kind of person who opts to rescue pugs over people in Spelunky - or indeed real life - Pug's Quest could be the mobile game for you.

This is a sweet and highly accessible roguelike starring everyone's favourite stubby-nosed species of dog. It's all about sliding our dog through a series of trap-filled levels, looking mighty cute while you're doing it.

Layton's Mystery Journey

Okay, so Layton's Mystery Journey doesn't star a dog, as such. But plucky protagonist Katrielle does have a talking canine sidekick that rather steals the show.

The daughter of the famous Professor Layton meets Sherl early in her adventure, and soon realises that only she can understand him. Given the relentlessly pompous tone of his discourse, that's a mixed blessing.

Miles & Kilo

This sequel to the beloved Kid Tripp sees our protagonist's trusty dog joining the retro platforming fray. While Miles remains the hero, certain levels push Kilo's unique abilities to the forefront.

The Kilo sections see him dragging his master behind at a fair old lick, and empower you with a powerful homing attack. Dogs are good like that.

Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.