Dogpile

A genius blend of Balatro's deckbuilding with Suika gameplay that delivers exceptional run variety through a brilliant tag system.

Introduction

Dogpile is a genius marriage of Balatro's deckbuilding mechanics with Suika game's gameplay package. The presentation is very charming with an awesome playful art style that immediately draws you in. After dozens of runs, I can say this is one of the most creative roguelike deckbuilders I've played this past year, and the run variety keeps every attempt feeling fresh.

Suika Meets Cards

The gameplay is heavily inspired by Suika game, but instead of fruit, you're combining dogs of similar tiers based on card ranks. You work your way up the tiers until you reach the King for a win, with the possibility to go endless. That alone is fun in itself, but the game goes an extra level and adds a roguelike deckbuilder layer on top.

You're building a deck of dog cards with various traits and synergies. The goal is to collect enough bones through combining dogs to progress to the next round. Between rounds, you can modify your deck by adding traits, upgrading cards, or cutting them to thin things out. The clever part is that failing doesn't end your run. You just take a penalty and keep going, which keeps the momentum flowing nicely.

The Tag System

Where the game shines in my opinion is the tag system. Once again to compare to Balatro, tags are your jokers. As you play, you collect money from merging, and you can spend it at the pet shop to buy tags which are the pillars of your build. They're usually passives that lean towards a synergy or sometimes a flat bonus or effect, and they vary in rarity.

I think this is where the game designers excelled. The large amount of tags and the variety of effects offer an endless amount of combinations and smart synergies that can tie everything together and bring your build online. For me, a roguelike lives and dies by its run variety, and I'm happy to say Dogpile succeeds with flying colors. In my dozens of runs, I very rarely ended up doing a similar build I did before. The large pool of tags coupled with the different decks you can start with offer different positive and negative effects that change your strategy from the start. This makes each run of this game very fun and diverse.

Minor Learning Curve

My only nitpick is that in the first few runs I had some confusion, especially around the dog traits and some of the tags. Keeping track of the hands and bones mechanic took a bit of adjustment too. But things quickly clear up once you finish a few runs, and it becomes second nature.

Verdict

Dogpile is a brilliant example of genre fusion done right. It takes the addictive combining gameplay of Suika and layers on Balatro-style deckbuilding to create something that feels completely fresh. The tag system is the star here, offering so much variety that I rarely repeated builds across dozens of runs. The charming presentation and playful art style make the whole package immediately appealing. Yes, there's a small learning curve in the first few runs as you figure out how all the mechanics interact, but that's a minor bump in an otherwise excellent experience. If you enjoyed Balatro or any physics-based merging games, this is an easy recommendation. The combination of both styles creates something special that stands out in the crowded roguelike deckbuilder space.