KYOTO, Japan — How do you make your game stand out in a room full of innovative projects at BitSummit, Japan’s indie game festival? Well, you could make a controller out of a plastic bottle of hand lotion.
That idea is taken, by the way.
ShCoCoooCoCo, pronounced shh-ko-koh-ko-ko, is the creation of freelance website and game designer Takahiro Miyazawa.
The title, he said, comes from shuko-shuko, the Japanese onomatopoeia for squeezing a pump.
“Mouse and keyboard games are pretty common, so I thought I’d make a weird controller,” he said.
That weird controller is also for the player’s on-screen character: a pump bottle with wings. Tilt the bottle forward and back to ascend and descend. Depressing the pump fires a squirt of liquid. (Not in real life, however, since the bottle is empty.)
It sounds simpler than it is. The on-screen character is big and never stops advancing. The enemies build up in number quickly, and they shoot back. Making matters more lopsided, enemy bullets fly straight ahead while your liquid mostly falls down.
And while the strangeness of the bottle controller gets people’s attention, it does make ShCoCoooCoCo prohibitively expensive to distribute. Miyazawa can’t simply put his game on the web like other indies can, since the controller is required.
“This [bottle] is the only one I’m planning to make,” he said, “but if I found someone willing to make more for me, I’d be happy to work with them. I’m looking for such a company right now.”
I can’t decide if he needs to call Kickstarter or Johnson & Johnson.
