The Collection Chamber: DOGDAY

In a world gone to the dogs you find yourself at the wrong end of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by the ruthless Chegga's security forces, the dreaded Dog Squad. Realizing your choices are either to flee the city or perish you must seek out the mysterious underground movement CATS and beg their assistance

Of course nothing is free, and the best currency is information...

DogDay is a dark, atmospheric adventure with a subtle sense of humor. Packed with puzzles solved by forethought and logic rather than luck, it will have you engrossed from your first scratch.

Every dog has his day. Perhaps this is yours...

~ from the back of the box

Apparently, every dog has its day, and in 1997, a small Australian studio called Eyst Pty Ltd (formerly Asylum Productions) had theirs by releasing DogDay. It's a oft-overlooked first-person adventure that takes place in a dystopian, anthropomorphic dog society where our scruffy hero must navigate the city at night to avoid and overthrow its authoritarian rulers. Despite its obscurity, this game somehow managed to earn a port to the PlayStation (though only in Japan) but how does this intriguing slice of 90s PC gaming hold up?

You play as a canine resistance fighter battling against a tyrannical government that has assumed control over the dog society. While you'll mostly be alone in this world - it is the middle of the night after all - there is some life still buzzing in the city. From mangey strays to furry sex-workers, there's a ragtag group of personalities that give depth to this world. None of them speak a lick of English - or anything even resembling words - so their silence only adds to the oppressive nature of the world they inhabit. It also means that the story is largely told thorough osmosis. Newspaper headlines give an idea as to what the government want the pup-ulace to know, which partially scrubbed graffiti tell us what people really think. Even the way certain locations look tell us a lot.

Play Puss Invaders (left), Pac-Dog (right) or Droids in the city arcade. It's almost like the real thing.

We begin locked in a little shed at the end of an alleyway. There's a desk in front of you which holds some secrets, as well as a phone that serves no purpose considering no-one can actually speak. This hideout, which doubles as a wine storage unit, contains the means of escape as well as other items that will be useful later down the line - like that wine. The game's mechanics were fairly typical for the time - point, click, drag items from your inventory that surround the main screen - but its setting and situations that make it stand out.

The game takes place in the emptied night streets of a city. Some doors are locked, never to be opened while others lead to a variety of disreputable establishments. From the arcade to the exclusive nightclub, it's fun to explore every area. You must be careful, though. A single step onto the road will trigger the Dog Squad, a law enforcement that will take you straight to the pound. A jail sentence isn't a game over. Time will tick on and you can interact with the items in your cell. Looks like it's time for a prison escape!

The puzzles are either over-complications of familiar tropes like this countless-piece jigsaw (left),

or entertainingly original pattern recognition codes like this attempt to hack a computer password (right).

One of the game's most curious locations is the arcade. Here, you can ignore the injustices of life that's the main adventure to simple play some mini-games. Being based on the likes of Space Invaders, Asteroids and Pac-Man, they each revel in dog-based puns that make up decent if not revolutionary alternatives to the real thing. You will need to get good at them too. Getting the high score on at least one of these games is a necessity to continue further in the game, though you won't necessarily know that until it happens.

The puzzles, while not particularly hard, are often hard to notice. And when you do find them, they can be so overblown and time consuming it's almost as if the designers were trolling you. Getting that high score at the arcade can take some time. As will piecing together that ripped up flyer in the nightclub. It has been split into so many pieces - some of them only a couple of pixels - that it's not so much about putting the jigsaw together, but doing so without all the pieces getting in the way.

There's definitely an adult edge to the game that niche demographics will certainly enjoy (left).
Get caught by the police and be sent to the pound. Time for a prison break (right).

Some puzzles do try to do something different. are so challenging that the use of a walkthrough becomes almost essential. A notable example is the computer password puzzle. To solve it, you must decipher dotted marks on a strip of paper and enter your answer via the paw-shaped number pad on the keyboard. It took all of my pattern recognition skills to understand what was being asked of me, making it a fun puzzle to solve and one that's not often found in similar games.

Overall, DogDay is quite a balanced adventure game. It's neither too hard nor too easy, and it's style and presentation would surely appeal to many adventure gamers. Sure, some of the graphics look a bit wonky, and the dog-people are jarring with or without clothes, but it oozes in personality. It's a shame the game never got the recognition it deserves, even if it did manage to cross over into consoles with the Japanese PlayStation port. Perhaps it's time to let this dog have its day after all.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox 0.74 running Windows '95. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

IMPORTANT - Remember to shut down the emulated version of Windows before exiting DOSBox. This could potentially result in errors, lost saves and corrupt data. The program will automatically shut down when you exit the game.

File Size: 696 Mb. Install Size: 965 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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