My Little Puppy shaping up to be a tear-jerking must-play for dog lovers everywhere

I get all sorts of emails from PR firms every day about potentially covering their games. But today, one subject line immediately grabbed me: “What if our pets were waiting for us in the afterlife?”

It’s a question I’ve pondered quite often myself, having loved and lost several dogs in my lifetime, and I know for a fact I am not alone. A new Steam demo for upcoming 2025 title My Little Puppy aims to give an answer to that question.

Part interactive story, part game, part emotional destruction, My Little Puppy stars a corgi named Bong-gu who lives in dog heaven. In dog heaven, which you reach by crossing over the rainbow bridge (a common belief among pet owners and animal lovers everywhere), animals await their loved ones to join them. All of the dogs wear halos over their head, fittingly, because as any dog-lover will tell you, they are angels on Earth.

Bong-gu’s job is to round up the rest of the tenants of dog heaven, including a soldier and his service dog, a John Wick lookalike and his pup, for a “welcome party.” That welcome party is someone else crossing the rainbow bridge to be reunited with their pups. But Bong-gu is lonely, missing his “daddy” every day. Until one day he’s woken up by his daddy’s scent, and the adventure begins.

As a dad to two of my own corgis, this demo crushed me. My oldest boy Yogi is turning 10 next month, while my boy Mickey just turned one last week. They are the world to me, and they dictate everything I do on a daily basis. I’m so lucky to have a career where I can work from home to be with them and spend time with them whenever I want, because dogs are everything.

I think that the developers at Dreamotion Inc., the makers of My Little Puppy, probably agree with me, because to tell the story of the rainbow bridge, dog heaven, and our connections we share with our animals and fur-babies is one that’s worth telling over and over again.

It was after a night of recurring nightmares about my boys escaping the yard and going missing (this happens often for me) that I woke up to this email, so I was already in a vulnerable state, but I couldn’t help but cry while playing through the demo, which is surprisingly lengthy and gives a solid taste of what’s to come when it fully launches in the second half of 2025.

Anyone who’s ever lost a dog or pet knows the pain. It’s an irreplaceable part of your soul that gets taken away. Dogs are forever innocent and joyful, and we as human beings do not deserve them. But the bond we share with our fur-babies is something that cannot be broken, even in the afterlife.

I’m not sure what I believe of the afterlife, but I truly hope the rainbow bridge is real. I hope when it’s my time, I cross the bridge and get to see my old pups Pudge, Peewee, and Cody. And, eventually, Yogi and Mickey. My eyes well up as I type the words, but it’s one of the harshest parts of reality as we know it.

As I was playing through the demo, Mickey brushed past my leg and began sniffing under my desk as he so often does, even though he’s not supposed to and he knows it. He attempted to leave, but knowing him, I took a closer look. He had a thumb tack in his mouth.

I pulled his jaw open and took the thumb tack out, emotional from the demo itself, and scolded him for a split second before picking him up and hugging him, tears forming around my eyes. He licked them clean, as he always does, as dogs always do, because they’re there for us no matter what. And that’s what drives the story behind My Little Puppy.

Bong-gu’s attempt to reunite with his daddy is the basis of the game, but just the beginning of the determined dog’s adventures, which also include meeting up with fairies, monsters, and other creatures as he follows daddy’s scent in an effort to create an inevitably emotional reunion.

I can’t put into words the love I have for these animals. But the game expresses that love in such a beautiful manner, in such a heartfelt way, that I can only hope that other dog lovers and those who appreciate animals and pets in general can try the demo out and feel the emotion behind it.

I’m greatly looking forward to continuing Bong-gu’s adventure later this year, if only for another constant reminder to cherish every single second we have with our dogs, because their lives are far too short on this Earth than they deserve.