Pup Champs

Pup Champs is the fourth Afterburn game on Steam. It follows the footsteps of Golf Peaks, Inbento and Railbound. It's another puzzle game with cute aesthetics and perfect interface along with robust controls. You have 8 worlds this time with plenty of bonus levels within them. However, Pup Champs is closer to Railbound than the other games, when it comes to the difficulty of the puzzles. The first 2-3 worlds had a better balance in that they're not so complex that you feel discouraged from solving the puzzles yourself. I can't say the same about the other worlds, I have been relying too much on the hint system and that's not a good thing. I love Afterburn games and I played every one of them. But this game made me realize that they've become too challenging, to the point that I'm not the target audience anymore. I'm going to part ways from this game forward unless things change. If challenge is what you're looking for, then I wholeheartedly recommend it. It took me 2.3 hours to complete the game and get all the achievements (the achievements are all related to completing the puzzles). I was able to use my demo save where I already completed most of the 3 worlds with it, so the total time might be closer to 3.5 plus hours. I would have never been able to get further without the hint system.

https://youtu.be/FghIG7lIzP0 Smooth progressing in puzzle difficultly with a friendly hint system, combined with a great setting and style is everything one would want in a puzzle game.

Another hit puzzler from Afterburn! I quite like pup champs, but kind of got tired of it midway through from puzzle game burnout more than any fault of pup champs. The puzzles are fun and the difficulty curve feels natural. As another reviewer (BugFree) said, it feels like solving chess puzzles and you try to find the final position, then work backward from that final position. Similar to Golf Peaks in that sense, some dislike it because it can become a little tedious to brute force trial and error your way to the final position. This game also has a hint system to show you step by step how to solve it, so beware! The temptation is real! (I abused it when i got tired and left myself unsatisfied! Will have to wait to forget all the solutions and come back another day.) But really, it's nice to have if you don't use it like that for when you get stuck.