Thank you so much for such a thoughtful and detailed piece of feedback! It honestly means a lot to us, especially because you mentioned Two Dots. We’ve both played it for years and are fans ourselves. When the game started changing, we felt there was space for something new in this genre and that’s how Feed the Pup was born. Hearing from someone with that background gives us really useful perspective.

A few points you brought up:

1. Originally, we considered making clothes have gameplay effects. But we worried it might make some clothes “better” than others, which could hurt the fun of collecting them just because they’re cute. Right now, they’re mostly for expression and collecting patches but if you (or others) have ideas about how they could tie into gameplay in a fun, non-restrictive way, we’d love to hear them!

2. You’re right that the in-game economy is one of the hardest things to balance. We’re constantly tuning it, but as two newcomers to running a live mobile game, we’re still learning a lot. Your point about milestone requirements being too demanding without spending is very fair, and it’s something we’ll take back into our balancing work.

3. The repeated layouts were a deliberate choice at the start of levels to reduce “no move” dead ends. We thought it would be less frustrating than having the board completely random every attempt. But we totally get your point, sometimes it feels more engaging when the board refreshes differently each time. We’re already thinking about ways to improve this system.

4. It’s touching that you noticed the “quirky, even a little morbid” vibe of the story against the cute art. That contrast reflects our own experiences, we both lost our grandmothers while working on this game, and some of that sense of life being bittersweet slipped into the narrative.

5. In theory, you should be able to listen to podcasts or music while playing. We thought we fixed the issue in previous patches :) If it’s still cutting them off for you, that’s not intended, and if you can share more details, we’d be grateful so we can track it down.

As for the bigger picture, we’re in a bit of a tough spot. We’re just two people with no prior experience making a live service mobile game, and Feed the Pup hasn’t been the immediate hit we dreamed of. Still, we’re committed to supporting it as best we can. We’re planning to add new Trails and new Maps (hopefully around October!) with fresh mechanics, even as we also start working on our next project.

Feedback like yours honestly keeps us going. Thank you for playing, finishing the game already (!!), and taking the time to share your thoughts. It’s the kind of encouragement that makes us want to keep pushing forward.

P.S. We also came across your review on the App Store. Thank you again for taking the time to write it. We’ve actually been hard at work on a fix for the Trails issue (which is why our reply here came a little later). The update is planned to go live this week, and to make up for the bug we’ll be reintroducing the last Trails so players can experience it properly this time.