I've played a fair handful of games like this, low-budget 3D Unity adventure games with minimal mechanical depth and lots of writing, and almost to a one they end up feeling kind of sloggy. AAfACRbD is the exception. The writing hits the perfect balance of terseness and humor to propel me through the game, the stage design is fun to explore and generally not overlarge, and there are even nice little mechanical touches like items that can boost your speed to avoid long slow movement sections.

The plot is also shockingly beautiful and more than a little heartwrenching. I cried multiple times, which is absolutely not what I expected from the first hour of the game. Like the rest of the writing, the relationship between the protagonist and his fiancee does a ton of heavy lifting with very little actual text.

I could provide a rationalization of the Dog Airport game, argue how this game is a unique and interesting portrayal of air travel, how tender and subtle its apocalyptic romance is, or even offer some unique philosophical analysis of the game, to explain why I love it so much.

But the truth is? It just makes me smile.

Utterly delightful and charming. Constantly smiling and laughing throughout the whole game. Some of the best game writing I've seen in years.

The gameplay gets a little tedious as it goes on and you start repeating fetch quests for the dogs at the gates (doubly so when you have to do a couple back-to-back because there isn't a direct flight to the airport you're trying to get to), but the writing is very silly and the relationship stuff that makes up the central narrative is really sweet. There are some good mechanical goofs as well, like how the large coffee is so big it immediately starts vibrating through the coffee shop geometry because there isn't enough room for it at its spawn point and then once you pick it up it almost completely blocks your view.

Made both me and my SO laugh several times to the point of hastily throwing quotes like memes at each other in a sparring match of "who can make the other groan the most"/10. There's also an extremely cute romantic throughline to it all and you can get really sappy about the planes at the end of time before crossing over into all of dimensia.

Instead, I share to you some of my favorites:
Very Full Dog: "you say the word, and i will spew peanuts all over this chair"
Surgeon Dog: "I don't think remembering the periodic table is required to be a scientist, and it is vaguely terrifying, but I do respect it."
Barktender: "Oh wow, you basically can't go wrong where toilet water is involved, but I prefer a modern bowl paired with an aged reservoir."
Pebuffstrian: "The only gain you'll regret not getting is the one that governs the amount of love you can hold in your heart, bro."
Me to you: You're the best thing and the worst thing that's ever happened to me. To all the dimensions we'll share. <3

I don't know if I'll ever untangle my thoughts into anything coherent, so here are some dog brain feelings I had playing this:

- more games should use stock photos
- wowowowow I hate airports
- is AAFACRBD a strand-type game?
- falling in love is like swimming in the bluest water you've ever seen and all you want to do is keep swimming and for your lunges to hold out as you go deeper and deeper. But then you feel your chest tighten and your vision blur and it's too late to change your mind as your body flings itself to the surface leaving behind all the fragile potential that moments before seemed endlessly possible.
- Gorby are you OK?