A rare free game for the Playdate that doesn’t come from the seasonal catalogue, Recommendation Dog!! is the fast-paced brother of Root Bear in spirit and function, though noticeably lacking any delicious puns in this instance. I guess the developers just wanted you to be a dog with a job for some reason, fair enough I suppose. Where they substantively differ is in the details.

Recommendation Dog!! is more about pure speed and image recognition, with you trying to match prospective customers with a suitable worker for their problem as fast as possible to serve as many people as you can before the time is up. From starving customers in need of a chef, to people who just want to see some magic tricks, the rolodex of workers you’re given to search in order to fulfill as many clients’ needs as possible makes for a dizzying list of characters.

Besides that, it’s not so different from your typical score-chaser. It has a “story mode” that is extremely easy and over before you know it. The length is fine, but for a title offering such an inconspicuous challenge it should have been much tighter on the required timing of each level. It has an endless mode as well of course. I wasn’t nearly as drawn to spend too much time on it for this game. When the game’s difficulty is only capped by raw hand speed, I can only get so much better before I’ve had my fill. Still, for a free title I would say it’s a decent one.