I figured it was about time for another blog post! And in my last one, I mentioned how our game isn't about dog fighting, it's just about dogs fighting. Let me start from the beginning...
When I was little, probably 9 or 10, I had a book about dog breeds. I loved to look through it, and memorized a lot of the information about each breed. Their sizes, weights, what they were historically bred for, the traits they had, all of it for dozens of different breeds took up all the space in my head where I probably should I been learning multiplication or something. Fast forward to 2018, my husband had wondered aloud about some dog fact. I proceeded to info-dump all my knowledge about that particular breed. He had the great idea to create "trading cards" with stats and abilities on them for different dog breeds. We later doodled them in armor and garb and labeled them "Dogs Of War"(heavily influenced by our recent initiation into Dungeons and Dragons).
So, while we initially began with dogs in armor and a "fight" mechanism, it wasn't through the lens of pitting dogs against each other for human profit. Dogs, with the sentient, self-aware intellect level of humans, but still with the instinct of their ancestors, would want to claim their own land. Just like wolves or feral dogs in the wild, of course they would fight to protect what they had. But just like in real life, animals don't fight to the death if they don't have to. If two dogs have issues with each other, they would raise their hackles, snarl, make a show of things with body language before ever resorting to teeth and claws. Sometimes that is enough for one dog to roll over and submit to the other. Other times, they will bite, scratch, and wrestle each other to see who's top dog, drawing blood if they have to. In our game, when one dog defeats the other in a fight, the dog card is "rolled over", and placed in the Roll Over Pile(the discard pile). We wanted to use this terminology specifically to reflect the reality of how dogs interact. This is in stark contrast to what happens when humans breed and train dogs to kill each other in dog fighting. In the Dogs Of War universe, there aren't even any humans around anymore! (You can read more about the DOW universe in our comic)
We love dogs, and would never condone that concept, much less develop a game about it or endorsing it. So while the dogs do fight, it's not dog fighting. And as I said in our first blog post, the "fight" action is one of the options that sees less use. More often, players are claiming territory, having pups, and gather resources to advance their society, though they occasionally challenge one another or fight for territory to reach their goals. I guess Dogs of War is more of a cold war than a traditional one! In the end, the atmosphere we're trying to cultivate is like Pokemon and Dungeons & Dragons, but with dogs. If that sounds like the kind of game you'd be interested in, consider supporting us over on Patreon!
Hailey
Lead Illustrator and Social Media Manager
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