What is Duck, Bobutt?
What kind of game can I make that allows me to play entirely with my butt ? Duck, Bobutt! is an exciting alt controller game where the player must sit on the controller in order to help Bobutt duck and avoid the hungry crow!
PROJECT OVERVIEW
GAME DETAILS
Genre: Alt Controller
Platform: PC and Mac
Game Engine: Unity
My Roles: Designer · Engineer · 2D Artist and Animator · Fabricator
LOGISTICS
Project Duration: January 2020 (one week)
Team Size: 1
PROCESS
This was a prototype created for my thesis-prep class (CTIN 542) taught by Jeff Watson in my second year at USC’s Game Design MFA program. The prompt was to answer an ad one of our peers sent out in terms of what kind of game they wanted. We chose one ad and spent 12 hours to design a prototype based on our own interpretation of the ad.
Ideation Process
Notes on brainstorming possible actions related to the mechanic.
Visualizing the game and setting up the Unity scene structure.
Player character and enemy animation frames.
The ad I picked was “Create a game that uses your butt to play.” I was ecstatic with the prompt. To start, I thought about scenarios that involved using your butt to perform actions. My mind landed on (all pun intended) sitting and squatting as the main action.
I must have been drinking boba or thinking about boba at the time, so I decided my player character would be a boba! Eventually my mind started putting things together: the player must sit down on a controller (placed on a chair) in order to help Bobutt the boba duck and avoid getting eaten by boba-loving crows.
Creating The Game and Alt Controller
I used cardboard and aluminum foil to create the controller that resembled the player character, Bobutt. The controller’s foil is then connected to a Makey Makey board using alligator clips that reads the input from the player’s butt impacting the controller.
For the game, I used Unity to construct the scene and programmed the controls to react with the Makey Makey and controller. I learned that the Makey Makey is a very user-friendly tool that makes it straightforward for Unity to receive input from an external controller. Art assets drawn and animated by hand, sound effects recorded in person.
