Dog’s Life

2003

Dog’s Life is an innovative action-adventure game, utilising Frontier's own freshly-created IP, that allows players to experience life from a dog's perspective. This was released on 29th October 2003 on PlayStation2, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and was nominated for two BAFTAs; 'Best Action Adventure' and 'Best Children's Game'.

Dog's Life has received widespread recognition for its fresh approach, won the 'Most Innovative Game' award at the 2003 Leipzig Game Convention, and has been nominated for two BAFTA awards, in the 'Best Action Adventure' and 'Best Children's Game' categories.

Dog's Life is targetted squarely at a living-room 'family' gaming audience. The game offers an innovative spin on the traditional character-action genre and introduces Jake, the player's character - who happens to be a mischievous young dog.

Huge interactive environments allow the player to go anywhere and do anything at their leisure, interacting with a wide variety of both animal and human non-player characters, and the player can switch at will from a third person view to "Smell-o-vision" a unique mode that provides a first-person canine view of the world, in which smells stand out as colours in an otherwise sepia environment which allows the player to experience the world through a dog’s eyes.

Combining a compelling storyline involving foiling a nefarious dognapping plot with unique gameplay and tongue-in-cheek humour, Dog’s Life is a completely original gaming experience. The player's success is influenced by how well they take care of Jake, and along the way they can choose to do anything a dog can - begging, stealing, fighting, chasing cats, marking territory, helping (and hindering) humans....plus, make sure you keep your pooper-scooper handy - all the food that Jake forages has to go somewhere!

Dog's Life showcases Frontier's sophisticated 'R-TAG' in-house animation technology, which delivers an instantaneous, smooth response to the player's control movements. R-TAG's subtle blending and layering of animations also allows Jake's health to be represented by his body language - so when Jake is hungry he slows down and looks forlorn, when he is well fed and happy he is perky and full of energy. Jake also gets dirty as he explores his environment, so the player needs to take their opportunities to keep Jake properly groomed, so that he gets as much free food and help as possible from the humans he encounters.