2005, Simulator
WISE Score
A 2005 Nintendo DS game where you raise puppies with the touch screen and teach them tricks with your voice.
Nintendogs is one of the gentlest games ever made and still one of the best pet games: brush a puppy, call it by name, walk it to the park and teach it to sit. For a 5- to 9-year-old who wants a dog, it is a real taste of daily care with no way to do lasting harm.
It needs a Nintendo DS or 3DS, which means a used handheld and cartridge. It is not on Switch.
A great fit from about 5, since there is little reading and the controls are touch and voice; Common Sense Media puts it at 6+. It holds most kids through about 9. Older kids who like caring for animals may enjoy it longer, especially as a first look at what a dog needs every day.
Rated E for Comic Mischief: brushing, walking and playing with puppies that never get sick or die. A neglected dog runs away for a while, a gentle consequence.
Naming a dog with your voice, teaching it tricks, dressing it up and taking it to the park leave lots of room to play pretend.
No purchases with real money and no online play. Bark Mode only meets other DS owners nearby.
Daily care routines and the cost of food and supplies teach a little responsibility and budgeting.
Nintendogs came out on the Nintendo DS in 2005, reaching North America on August 22 in three editions: Lab & Friends, Dachshund & Friends and Chihuahua & Friends. Each starts you with a different set of breeds. Shigeru Miyamoto, the designer behind Mario and Zelda, has said the idea came from his family's dog. Across every version it sold 23.96 million copies, second only to New Super Mario Bros. on the DS.
Dress-up is part of it: a Dalmatian puppy in a fire chief's hat.
The puppy lives on the touch screen. You pet it, scratch behind its ears, feed it and wash it with a sponge. You name it by saying the name into the microphone, and teach tricks the same way: say "sit" while guiding it into a sit, and after enough practice it sits when you say it. Puppies stay puppies forever. They never get sick or die, but a dog left hungry for too long runs away for a while before coming back.
Bath time with a sponge, one of the daily jobs.
Walks follow a route you draw on a map, with the puppy pulling toward smells, other dogs and the occasional present. Disc-catching, agility and obedience contests earn money, which buys food, shampoo, toys and eventually more dogs and a bigger house. It is a small budget lesson: no contest, no food.
A walk to the park, where your puppy meets other dogs.
Nintendogs runs only on the DS and 3DS family; it has never come to Switch. Copies are sold used, and any DS, DSi, 3DS or 2DS will play the cartridge. The 3DS follow-up, Nintendogs + Cats (2011), adds kittens and the same care loop. If there is no old handheld in the house, the closest thing on Switch is Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which has the same gentle daily rhythm without the puppies.
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