Ceci n’est pas une pipedog
When naming literally anything, great consideration should be taken in the act of doing so. It’s the first scene setter, and a bad name can make you click away quite easily in this fast paced digital age. Yet there I was, humbly scrolling through Social Media Name, when I saw it: pipedog. It’s pipedog! It is exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more.
By that, I mean you play as a dog, a sort of origami looking interpretation of a dog, and you are, according to the game’s Steam page, far from home. “The world around you brims with ancient structures, broken systems, and strange creatures. Climb through the shifting environments decaying a civilization as you document the critters of the world and uncover its secrets,” it explains further. These ancient structures are, quite simply, pipes. Infinitely spanning pipes, as far as the eye can see, and not a single wahoo or Mama Mia to be heard reverberating amongst them.
— Alice Bottino (@bottino.games) April 29, 2026 at 11:52 PM
Pipedog, as far as I can tell, is a sort of surrealist take on those climbing games that trended a while ago (and, weirdly, could be found in Clair Obscur of all places). Your dog form can waltz around and jump across the dizzying, intertwining layers of pipes, all of which can be done online with friends too. Or, in what sounds akin to Journey’s online system, you can “join up with other dogs you meet and form a pack.”
Despite not being equipped with thumbs (or any appendages, by the looks of things), your dog comes equipped with a camera too, designed for taking snapshots of lizards and potentially other critters. And presumably whatever else you fancy too! I am enamoured by the simplicity offered up in pipedog, as I love nothing more than to hang out in a strange space with as few buttons to press as possible.
It is also a wildly different game compared to developer Dreamware Media’s previous release, Hyperbeat, a Rezian rhythm game about knights seeking their highest potential. There’s no release date attached to pipedog just yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam in the meantime.
