You are the Animal Inspector, and some pets just aren't any good

If you like the idea of stamping approved and rejected stamps on animals' helpless faces, Animal Inspector is the game for you. In a world where pets are taking up too much space, or have turned bad, or maybe both, the Animal Inspector's job is to flip through dossiers and decide which pets are useful enough to stick around.

Of course, pets' utility is often things like "is a good listener" or "hides a lot". That's just how pets are.

Animal Inspector, made by Tom Astle, is sort of like a lighthearted take on the famous Papers, Please, where your document-processing decisions can create moral conflicts or story branches. If you don't follow your supervisor's instructions, which are often wacky and place you at odds with your coworkers, you collect a "strike", and you can only have three. Your main objective as an Animal Inspector, though, is to stay on the job long enough to protect your own beloved dog from getting inspected away from you. How far will you go to keep him safe?

It's well-conceived, fun and funny-you must type your own comments, or reasons for approving or rejecting a pet, on their dossier, and you can save these and share them on social media (I rejected one puppy with only the comment "has a stupid face"). Though the game isn't massive or anything-I finished in 25 minutes-it has multiple endings, and there is lots to see.

It also has a soundtrack by Ben "Torahhorse" Esposito (whom we've previously interviewed on Offworld)-Animal Inspector is free to download here, but those who purchase it at the suggested $3 or more get the soundtrack.