Yes, Mama Mimi, I'm Playing Dog Online Every Day
	2026 October 29
	Current Mood:	in a slump, YEOWCH
	Now Playing:	"How to Count to Five" by Holidays in United States

Thanks to this post by Laura Michet last week I finally made a Dog Online account and instantly got hooked.

Some things that fascinate me about the game:

• Really fun RPG stat system that is based on filling up collections of different things acquired from different activities (things you eat, or read, or fight, or fish) rather than minmaxxing the grind to level up (hello Ragnarok Online job guides). This way one really needs to see everything that the game has to offer to be able to use cooler equipment (basically to progress in the game).
• Beautifully broken weapon-trinket builds. If you liked fucking around in The Binding of Isaac by completely overpowering your character — you would definitely like what this game has to offer with its dungeon crawling.
• It feels to me personally that the game is embracing the Homestuck development approach, and I feel like it's the smartest thing one can do for a social online game that is only going to be relevant for a certain period of time. To quote Andrew Hussie:

Everything you see in HS is an expression of this efficiency, or an exploration of it. The question at all times was, how do I maximize the engagement time of the reader while minimizing the labor time needed to secure that engagement? For aspiring creators I feel this is one of the most valuable things it has to offer, a sort of guide by example on how to economize your creative decisions to the fullest extent while still drawing strong reactions from readers.

• Highly referential and pun-based silly humour has enough smart and "what the fuck? hello??" moments akin to what Tobyfox does in his games.
• Speaking of "hello??" moments, I find it truly inspiring that for song items that can be found/crafted in the game and then used as your dog page decoration the developers went straight into the midi covers of old pop hits territory. And those are not the obvious meme songs you could expect! I spent like.. an hour trying to remember the original song name of one of the song items by watching Top 200 Hit Songs from 90s-00s compilation videos on youtube... One silly thing I'm now doing: when encountering a new song item that I can't yet listen to but know the partial name of I go to youtube and try to see "anyone from dog online?" comments under a song I think that song item could be representing.
• I think having a fictional character with a whole storybuilding aspect to represent the main developer of the game is a fun thing to do! Mama Mimi needs to feed her 8 (9?? Secrets!!) puppies, so she asks everyone to please play Dog Online every day. She also has the "Letters to Mimi" blog, and players could write her letters (hopefully this website feature returns someday).
• The number of website toys that you can just mess around with or decorate the Dog Online website itself with while playing is so impressive! Not only cursors, but whole mini-games that you can just entertain yourself with while doing the game stuff. No idea why we don't have these everywhere on the Internet...
• The deliberate choice of using Flash for mini-games and some event animations in 2026 is such a cool thing to do

While I'm sitting here completely burnt out and drained out and depressed, I'm looking at this huge blast of energy the developers pour into Dog Online and I'm like: "Hell YESS. Let's gooo. Let's all appreciate this moment of fun and creativity while the developers are able to fully commit to the game". Just like Blazeball, this game is not going to be on the Internet forever, so I think joining the fun while it's popular can be seen as a nice online community event. It's the Alive Internet Theory stuff that so many people mourn these days. It's a New Website.

And in contrast to my Elevated Thoughts on this game, I was surprised by how strongly ignored the game is in my social bubbles. I posted about it in several small communities and only got like.. 3-4 reactions, while some social circles completely ignored my posts. My bsky feed is completely devoid of Dog Online posts. For a moment I felt like I entered Some Twilight Zone but that just probably intersects with people being too old and tired for that kind of stuff maybe? It's still a mystery to me because the game is clearly made by millennials for the Neopets crowd, yet it's like I'm looking into some generational rift. It's like you either watch Nathan Fielder or play Deltarune at this point?? Messed up thought.

Anyway, leave me a comment under this post with your friend code!
Mine is S6D6W7C7