Love dogs? Don’t love your job? This is the best game for you!!
The Backstory of Ruff Day at the Office
In the demo for Ruff Day at the Office, you play as a cute dog. You have no name, but that’s ok. You can understand what your owner says to you, and you are very eager to help him.
Ruff Day at the Office begins in your owner’s office. He tells you that if he can outwork floor 1, he may get a raise. He tells you he’ll spend that raise on a new sofa and treats for you. Of course, you want to help him!
The rest of the game involves you doing tasks to help your owner out on floor 1. They take some imagination to complete, but they aren’t too difficult either. They are just right!
The Gameplay of Ruff Day at the Office Demo
I often need a lot of handholding as I begin a game. Not with this one!! The instructions for Ruff Day at the Office are very straightforward. I followed my owner to an office setting and was able to pull up a list of tasks to complete. There isn’t a tutorial because it’s not needed. I just jumped right into the game! The game is an open-world game within each level, also called a “floor” in Ruff Day at the Office.
The tasks were slightly tricky to figure out, but very, very clever!! I spent 15 minutes on each level, but I play very slowly. Completing the tasks is a lot of fun, though. For example, task number two is “recycle papers”. In the office, there is a shredder. When I got near it, there was a pop-up that told me to press A to shred paper. But I had no paper to shred.
After I watched the office activity for a while, I noticed the bald man was using his computer, printing something and then going to the printer to pick it up. I ran to the printer before he could get there, grabbed his paper and shredded it! He had no idea why his paper wasn’t printing and got so mad! It was really funny!
The other tasks in this level were equally challenging. I had to update all 4 computers in this office. Two desks are often unattended, so that was easy. There was a fun mini-game which updated them. However, the other two desks had people using them, and they did not want to leave. I had to do something to make them move away from their desks long enough for me to complete the mini game! It was really fun and clever.
The next level takes place in the IT department. Our owner’s monitor has exploded (!!) and he would like to replace it with a larger, fancier one. We’re on board to help him with that!! As an added challenge in this level, there is one employee who keeps picking me up and moving me out of the main IT area and back beyond the yellow and black barrier. So I have to sneak past him! There are several fun mini games to do in order to complete the new task list.
This is a single-player game with full controller support. I played on a PC with my controller and everything worked beautifully!
Oh, in the demo, there was a fun hat for me to find on both levels. In the final game, there will be even more hats to collect!
The Atmosphere in the Office
Ruff Day at the Office is drawn in a fun cartoony style. I like it!! It’s not a pixel game, but it’s also not a hyper-realistic one. The game was originally created at a Game Jam in February of 2025 by a team of 4. The distinctive artwork was originally created by LyaMgtt, but she did not want to continue with the project after the Jam. With her permission, one of the game devs continued creating the game in the same style. I think he did a good job. It’s different!
The color palette is nice, not too bright but still cheerful to my eyes. Each demo level is compact; there’s not a lot of wandering around. There’s a lovely soft jazz soundtrack playing in the background, composed by tetsuo!. They were also part of the original Game Jam and continued composing music for the game after it ended. I liked the soundtrack so much that in the settings, I turned it up and turned the game sounds down a bit. It was very soothing.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed playing Ruff Day at the Office, which was co-developed by Roope Korpela and Joy Spark Games. Roope Korpela is an indie game developer from Finland, teaming up with JoySpark Games, also from Finland. They both worked on the original Game Jam version.
The tasks I had to complete were fun and inventive. I had to use my brain, but not so much that I got a headache!! Everything is very clever, it’s a relaxing, very fun game. I spent 30 minutes playing both levels in the demo. In the final game, there will be an entire floor dedicated to HR with meeting rooms and other areas for doggy fun. There will also be a CEO floor where the doggy can create extra mischief, and last, there will also be more mini games everywhere.
Ruff Day at the Office does not have a planned release date at this point, but the demo will stay on Steam indefinitely. I encourage you to try it. I’m definitely excited to see the rest of the game!
Do you like our content?
Subscribe to our daily news and never miss a review!