Pogui Review: A Pug-tastic Indie Platformer Surprise (2026)

A Pug-tastic Surprise in a Small Package

As lead tech analysts here at In Game News, we’ve seen our fair share of indie platformers, and honestly, the boilerplate can be a bit… predictable. So, when Pogui landed on our desks, ticking every box on the "generic indie platformer" checklist – pixel art, an animal protagonist, basic controls, even the obligatory candy land levels – we weren't exactly holding our breath for a game-changer. We assumed we'd play it, give it a fair shake, and promptly forget it. What a genuine pleasure it is to be proven utterly wrong.

Pogui, much like its adorable pug main character, might be a small package, but it’s bursting with an infectious energy and character that few budget platformers manage to muster. It’s certainly not the most inventive title we’ve encountered this year, but it’s pure, unadulterated entertainment. This petite platformer truly packs a surprising punch, reminding us that sometimes, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to deliver a fantastic experience.

Puggy Precision on the Sticks

Let's talk controls, because in a platformer, they’re everything. Pogui the pug doesn’t come with a complex arsenal of moves. She can jump, run, drop down from platforms, and duck. That’s it. We’re hardly talking Prince of Persia levels of acrobatics here. However, Pogui masterfully squeezes every last drop from this seemingly limited move set. Where other games might sideline the drop-down or the duck, Pogui places a surprising and welcome emphasis on them within its level design. Large chunks of the game require players to truly master the art of ducking beneath moving platforms, turning what often feels like an afterthought into a critical skill.

By focusing on elements other games overlook, Pogui carves out its niche, becoming a 2D platformer that’s a single, refreshing deviation from the norm. We found the controls – with one small exception – to be absolutely spot on. Pogui is a joy to manipulate on the sticks, boasting a satisfyingly arcing jump and a noticeable generosity when it comes to collision detection. We consistently felt in control, which allowed the game to confidently ratchet up the difficulty without feeling unfair. It challenges the player slightly more than the average budget platformer, secure in its own ability.

The Curious Case of the Skid

Now, about that one small exception to the otherwise breezy controls: the run-and-jump. Executing this move often applies a slight skid after landing. While a minor detail, it can be unfortunately unpredictable, especially when aiming for smaller, more precise platforms. On the final worlds of Pogui, where time is of the essence (and we won’t spoil why), this skid amounted to a minor nuisance. We often found ourselves actively avoiding the run-and-jump if we could get away with it, preferring precision over speed in critical moments.

Plundering the Platforming Past

It almost feels strange to laud Pogui, given how much it borrows from the rich history of platforming. In many ways, it doesn't do much that’s truly different from other indie platformers. The enemies, for example, are hardly original; every last one has a clear corollary in a Mario game. Seriously, the underwater levels feature squids and pufferfish so similar we half-expected Nintendo lawyers to suddenly appear from behind our monitors. Enemies generally move from side to side, rise and fall out of boxes like piranha plants, or crawl around floating crates. It’s all very standard platforming fare.

Hazards are similarly familiar. Platforms move along prescribed routes, spikes dutifully rise and fall, and Thwomp-like blocks threaten to crush you from above. There are a few clever surprises, particularly when it comes to lasers and that fantastic last world, but for the most part, this is achingly familiar territory. In Pogui, your objectives aren’t revolutionary either. Levels, while slightly longer than your usual indie fodder, are essentially an entrance and an exit (Pogui just wants to reach her bed, adorably updated to a hammock on beach levels), with collectible bones scattered along the way. There are no hidden worlds, no branching paths, just a straightforward platforming journey. The more we write about it, the more we wonder why we liked Pogui so much, as it seems almost retrograde. It certainly doesn’t push against the established formula in any meaningful way.

The Undeniable Charm of Doing Things Well

The answer, we think, lies in execution. Not every game needs to be a ground-breaking innovator, and Pogui clearly isn’t searching for new ways to do something. Instead, it proves that doing things exceptionally well – with sharpness, precision, and the undeniable charm of an adorable pug – is a perfectly viable path to success. There’s a raw honesty to its straightforward design that we appreciated.

There’s a Place in Our Heart for Pogui

Ultimately, we liked Pogui because it effortlessly generates a sense of flow while simultaneously making us feel like platforming kings (which, trust us, we are not). It combines pinpoint controls with platforming sequences that seem harder than they actually are, creating a beautiful illusion of skill. Having survived the traps and challenges it threw at us, we felt a greater sense of reward than we typically get from most indie platformers. We wholeheartedly recommend playing Pogui on the Normal difficulty setting. This puts a sensible limit on the lives you receive, while the collectible bones in each level provide a crucial extra life. We found that Pogui’s level of challenge was perfectly pitched, leaving us consistently around 4 or 5 lives, which injected a neat sense of tension into each run. With infinite lives, those bone collectibles simply wouldn’t have felt so vital.

Straight-Up Fun, No Pretence

We’re not going to pretend that Pogui is revolutionary. It's incredibly straightforward as indie platformers go. But it just feels like, across the board, everything has been lifted a tier. The level designs are just that little bit better than average in terms of challenge and flow. The controls have a neat snap and responsiveness that feels great. And the presentation? Well, it’s undeniably puggy, and we mean that as the highest compliment. It’s easy to sneer at Pogui, wondering what it’s bringing to the broader 2D platforming conversation. But those people would be ignoring how genuinely fun it is. This is not a game to overthink.

Using the components of every other platformer ever, it manages to whip up an hour’s worth of platforming that had us smiling as we were carried along by its momentum.

In our experience, those smiles are exactly what we look for in a good platformer. Pogui delivers.

The Breakdown:

• Pros: Pug!, Controls are almost infallible, Builds good platforming momentum.
• Cons: Feels formulaic, Had room for more mechanics and ideas, Might be too easy for some.

Pogui is not available on Game Pass Day One, but it is Xbox Play Anywhere Enabled. A massive thanks to Eastasiasoft for the free copy of the game. For £4.19, this little gem is a solid pickup.

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