Doronko Wanko Review (PC): Kibbles Amount of Fun in a Bit-Sized Game

Doronko Wanko (which translates to “dirty dog” according to Google) is a game that I never heard of in the past. A very small free-to-play game made by Bandai Namco, you play as a dog trying to absolutely destroy your owner’s house with mud and paint. After doing a little research, I found out this game is actually a product of new hire onboarding program, so while there is a big name behind it, this game is made by brand-new people just getting started in the game development world. That’s very impressive because, while the game is incredibly small, Doronko Wanko houses quite a bit of fun running around this place and causing as much destruction as you can.

People that love cozy games (and dogs in general) will have a good time here. There’s no time limit, no challenge, and not even a peep from the world’s most relaxed and tired homeowner, who can be found sleeping in various areas around the place. It’s just a sandbox for you to cause a mess and see how many goals and badges you can rack up by destroying the place.

Unmatched Mayhem in the Form of the Goodest Boy

When you first step into the paws of your pupper, you are placed at the entry way to a very fancy house. Your dog must have just come in from outside because as you start walking around, you notice mud being tracked behind you. This is where the carnage starts. A quick roll around in that mud and your dog is essentially a paintbrush that can spread mud as far as you can see. In this respect, Doronko Wanko reminded me a bit of Splatoon, in that as long as there is the tiniest pool of paint, you can extract endless ammo from it to paint the walls with.

As you spread your filth, you will accrue a score in the monetary value of damage you’ve caused. The higher this goes, the more tools and toys unlock around the house. Some moments will have a fan spawn in, where you can fling paint into that will in turn be blown into a hard-to-reach wall. Other unlocks can be helpful in spreading the mess. For example, a whale hat that shoots blue paint directly above you, or a gatling gun that continuously fires mud in front of you. That latter unlock was an unexpected and welcome surprise to me that I really enjoyed.

While causing a mess around the house is quite fun, Doronko Wanko does become quite grindy after a while. After you unlock the final room of the house, all you have left to do is finish your badges, which includes a score of over $20,000,000. By the time I reached that final point, I was at a fraction of that, so it wasn’t something I wanted to pursue. Also, all of us English speaking people have to do a little bit of blind working around in the menus the first time you start the game. By default, everything is in Japanese, so you’ll probably be stuck clicking on a bunch of different options until you find out where to set the language to English, like I had to.

Final Verdict

Don’t let those very small criticisms put you off from giving the game a try, though. For starters, it’s free, and also, it’s fun. I called it quits after about a half hour of gametime, but I’m sure if you wanted to go for every badge, you could probably get everything done after a full hour. For a project that was just thrown together by a bunch of new workers, I enjoyed Doronko Wanko and wouldn’t mind seeing what could be thought up if they were to go further with this idea. It could rival something along the lines of Katamari Demacy.

Doronko Wanko was reviewed on PC with a code provided by Bandai Namco. It is also available on Nintendo Switch.

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