Koo-Koo

Our alt.ctrl.GDC 2019 submission video

Koo-Koo is a top-down, multiplayer, competitive game in which you control a flock of mechanical birds with the mechanism of a cuckoo clock. I worked on the game as Designer and Producer for the duration of 5 months. I was responsible for conceptualizing, and iterating on gameplay systems as well as designing and building the controllers, external communication and online publications. Koo-Koo was showcased at alt.ctrl.GDC 2019.

These pictures were taken at the alt.ctrl.GDC 2019 showcase

Our goal was to showcase our project at alt.ctrl.GDC. It was essential to have a fun interaction as our core, so we started brainstorming about things we liked to do when we were kids. Out of the different ideas that were thrown around, the cuckoo clock intrigued us most. We then started thinking about how we could turn possible ways to interact with the clock into game controls. Because the game had to be easy to learn and pick up and play, we chose to use the hands and weights of the clock. Interacting with these is something most people are already familiar with. We only had about 3 weeks to create a prototype and sent in our application for alt.ctrl.GDC. To make this happen, we had to work very long days. This was my first introduction to crunch time. Luckily we were able to finish in time and were invited to GDC. After that, we had 4 months to finish our project. The game is heavily inspired by Videoball, which we used as a base and iterated on to make a hectic experience in which the player is never really in control. There are two teams consisting of three controllers, each connected to one bird. The birds all move in their own tempo, along with the ticking of the clock, which encourages the player to jump from clock to clock to give new commands/input. Creating this game and the physical controllers was a very iterative process, which really honed my creative problem solving and solution thinking. I also gained a lot of experience working in wood and metal workshops and working with laser cutters.

→ Link to our Game Developer article ←

→ Link to itch.io page ←