Everyone asks "can I pet the dog?" but no one asks "can I fly the dog?" Well, Chilean developer Kemono Games asked the question, and the answer is ProtoCorgi, a horizontally-scrolling shoot-'em-up starring a robotic dog. Set in deep space after a vicious alien attack on an unsuspecting planet, the game follows Bullet, a C³ (Cute Cyber Corgi) class robot as it takes the fight to the enemy in a heroic attempt to rescue its master and inventor, a brilliant scientist kidnapped during the invasion.

Story is typically an afterthought for shoot-'em-ups, but it's actually the first thing you'll experience in ProtoCorgi. The game opens with an eye-catching anime-styled cinematic, which is something of a masterclass in non-verbal, visual storytelling. In approximately 60 seconds, without a single spoken word or line of text, the audience comprehends exactly the premise, conflict, and stakes. This narrative understanding helps elevate the experience above the basic interplay of bullets and hitboxes. It also doesn't hurt that the game is built around a pet-owner relationship, which many people immediately understand on an emotional level.

The story in ProtoCorgi is really only present at its bookends, however. For the most part, you'll be focused on leveraging the game's shooting mechanics and power-ups to survive the alien onslaught, and chaining together score multipliers to reach the top of the leaderboards (both local and online). Luckily, Kemono has delivered solid results in both areas, thanks to multiple offensive options and score-chasing avenues. Our intrepid corgi starts with a button-tapping BARK attack (the projectiles are the letters B, A, R, and K, which is adorable) or a rapid-fire pea-shooter, which can be expanded greatly with power-ups that include spread shots, homing missiles, and laser beams. Additionally, Bullet can turn left or right to engage enemies on both sides, and — coolest of all — deploy an astral form of itself to pummel the enemy with a barrage of body blows.

ProtoCorgi also benefits from an easy-to-understand, gratifying scoring system. For each ship and installation you destroy, you'll earn a small sum of points, but more importantly you'll accumulate a multiplier, which is represented visually by dog treats surrounding Bullet. This multiplier is added to any fruit you collect from fallen enemies. Why fruit? Because shoot-'em-up, that's why. If you snag a piece of fruit with a low multiplier, you'll earn a decent chunk of points, but if you blast ships continually and send your multiplier into the stratosphere and then pick up a bunch of fruit, you'll reap huge rewards. Patience is a virtue in ProtoCorgi.

Not only does patience pay off in terms of scoring, but also in the context of unlocking content. ProtoCorgi embraces a system of content unlocks that reward you the more you play the game. For the most part, this works beautifully. As you start and complete new runs, regardless of whether you succeed, you'll raise the limit on lives and continues. This is a great feature, because even if you flame out early — and you will — you'll earn the right to make future runs more likely to succeed. Moreover, after you complete each stage, you'll unlock it in the practice menu, so you can complete as many dry runs as you'd like on the trickier sections.

The downside to this system is that certain things that should be accessible right away, like mechanics and tutorials, are trapped behind certain achievements in the main campaign. What's more, you can't use every element from the campaign in the game's level editor until you hit certain arbitrary criteria. The ice turret, for example, only becomes available after you've destroyed 200 ice turrets. It requires some grinding.

Speaking of the level editor, it is, as Adrian Monk would say, both "a gift and a curse". That fact that Kemono included a make-your-own stage feature is extraordinary and should be applauded. You can craft horizontal and vertical levels of your own, with unique backdrops, theme songs, enemies, hazards, and bosses, and send them online for folks around the world to play. That's the good news. The bad news is that the editor itself is clumsy, counter-intuitive, and just a hassle to use. 

If you don't have the patience to design levels of your own, you can always fall back on the five challenging levels from the main game, which are both substantial and enjoyable. Each one enjoys specific enemies and enemy formations, distinctive hazards, an interesting final boss, and a secret pathway. Not everything is perfect — the fifth level recycles some end-of-stage bosses as mini-bosses and the fourth level's vac-tunnel section justifies the game's epileptic seizure warning — but overall ProtoCorgi earns its shooting stripes.

What might be even more impressive than the levels themselves is the way in which each one changes at different difficulty settings. Kemono could have just boosted the HP of each enemy and called it a day, but instead the developer carefully adjusted the placement and behavior of enemies to create a unique experience at each difficulty tier. It boosts the game's replay value considerably.

Visually, ProtoCorgi benefits from some colorful and cartoony pixel art and little flourishes like the fully-upgraded laser leaving behind paw prints in space. The overall aesthetic can't compete with the best shooters out there, but it's fetching nonetheless. More impressive is the game's chiptune soundtrack, by Francisco Cerda. Each song is perfectly suited to the atmosphere of the stage. You're invited into the adventure with the stage one track "Leviathan", and by stage five the do-or-die sound is crashing all around you.

Thanks to its cheerful graphics, bouncy music, and stubby canine hero, ProtoCorgi is easy to like. But don't let the cute corgi fool you; this is a game that takes its shoot-'em-up gameplay very seriously. And the results speak for themselves: solid shooting, interesting scoring mechanics and level designs, and carefully curated experiences at each difficulty setting. The level editor is clumsy and the unlock process can turn grindy, but in general Kemono has done the genre justice.