It's tough to stand out in today's games industry, but 'sorta like Helldivers 2 except dog people' worked on me

Here are some reasons to try the Gravhounds open playtest on Steam:

• It's free for the next few days and seems well put-together for a playtest of an unreleased early access game
• It's a co-op wave shooter and those are basically always fun to muck around in with friends, at least for a bit
• The movement feels good, especially gliding across networks of buildable cables
• There's a light resource mining and tower defense element that has potential
• You collect resources by hucking them across the map with a gravity gun, which is satisfying (just don't do it with explosive materials, I learned)
• It doesn't really play like Helldivers 2, it just replicates the home base spaceship setup, but it's a good format, and the shooting is fun

Also, you may have noticed that the characters are dogs with people bodies.

Is that also a reason to try it? It did catch my attention, mainly because I find these particular dog people a bit unsettling. I felt the same way about Fox in the Star Fox remake.

But you've got to stand out, right? Would I have tried Gravhouds if the characters looked like Helldivers 2 soldiers? I'm not sure. And I do like that when you respawn, you come back wearing a cone of shame.

Maybe a worn-down, dissociating blue collar dog guy is just what you need to get people in the door.

Do you think he has regular human hands under those gloves, or are they like paws that have morphed into hand shapes?

The open Gravhounds playtest runs through Monday. All you have to do is click the 'join playtest' button on its Steam page and you, too, can be a dog who thinks he's people and also is people.