Pup Champs

Pup Champs (2025) is a puzzle game about positioning your football player to score goals. However, you can only move a certain number of spaces and must avoid the obstacles and other players on the field. It stands out for this delicate balance between minimising distance and avoiding hazards that creates a surprisingly strategic puzzle.

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Play involves moving your anthropomorphic dog football player around the pitch to collect the ball and kick it into the goal. In each level, you get a set number of moves and kicks. You also have to work around cones and bushes that obstruct the most direct route.

Complexity increases as you are put in control of multiple players, requiring you to both move and pass the ball to score. Also adding to the challenge are players on other teams, who try and take the ball away from them and are also able to move around the pitch. This forces you to adapt your strategy on the fly to avoid them and introduces a level of unpredictability that rewards creative and flexible problem-solving.

The result is a game where experimentation and forward-thinking are key. Piecing together how to approach each new stage and obstacle, from roadblocks to opposing players, is an engaging and involving brain tease where thought-through actions are key.

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Our examiner, Ellen Robertson, first checked Pup Champs a year ago. It was re-examined by Ben Kendall and updated 2 days ago.