Pick Pack Pup

released on May 02, 2022

Pick Pack Pup is a match-3 puzzle game where matches don't disappear immediately, making each new move trickier. In the game you play as Pup, the newest employee at a fulfillment center, who will discover the ups and downs of packing boxes and will unpack a lot of surprises along the way.


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This one took my by surprise, I loved it. Ended up blowing through all 30 stages of the story mode in a day and really enjoyed how it kept mixing up the basic puzzle mechanics to keep it fresh. The story was simple but cute. Hearing the Summoning Salt music at the end was a shock. Will definitely keep coming back to this to play the other modes. This is a great game.

Another week another Playdate game, with the first of week three's entries being Pick Pack Pup, a match-3 game where you package items in a modern warehouse setting. The game uses the crank to scroll through its story, with the D-pad and A buttons used for the actual gameplay. The story is pretty cute. It has some fun criticisms of corporate greed while keeping a light hearted tone. The match-3 gameplay is nothing to write home about, and it's actually much easier than most as many levels don't have any way to lose. You simply need to match enough objects to move on to the next level. There are a few that buck this trend and have more puzzle or time limit constraints, but it's still never difficult. If anything, some of the point quotas are high enough to become tedious, as there's never any risk of failure, but it still takes a while to complete the stage. This is made worse by a mechanic where the bottom row of objects will be destroyed on a timer, subtracting from your point score. This only serves to draw out the level even longer, and while there is a mechanic to try and minimize this effect, I found it a bit finicky to pull off. All that aside, I like the gameplay and I like the presentation; so much so that this is probably my favorite Playdate title thus far.

'Pick Pack Pup' is a 'packing and shipping' match-three puzzle game wherein the matching of objects packs them together in a box to be shipped at a later time in a combo with other boxes. It's fun enough and there is a thirty-stage story mode framed in satire on capitalism and corporate practices. There is also a 'forever' mode that I'm unlikely to find much time to play. I found this to be a decent enough time filler with a bit of fun writing and art, but little in the way of actual challenge.

Short and fun! I liked how objectives changed regularly so levels never felt stale. My favorite part is the paper noise when you crank through the comics.

annoyingly forced anti-corporate messaging, underwhelming puzzle mechanic.

Only decent idea is the use of the crank. you pop it out to scroll the comics between stages and pop it back in to leave the comic.

Enjoyed the anti-corporate messaging here, although it was quite forced. The puzzle gameplay was serviceable, if a little easy. Still, a pleasant way to while away 20 minutes here and there.