Real-time butt sniff may give you poop skills
A lot of people assume that “weird indie games” all want to use “interactive poetry” to speak to “the human condition” by using “experimental gameplay techniques” to do things like “evoke the emotional experience of repeatedly using air quotes for no reason” because “that’s more real than anything you’ll ever see in a big budget AAA title.” The truth is, today’s more boldly avant-garde indie games are usually in the minority. They’re just the ones that end up getting the most attention.
Take Butt Sniffin Pugs for instance, one of the games to be featured at GDC 2015’s ctrl.alt.GDC exhibit. It’s been out in the public for a while, but few have taken notice of it yet. I’ll be darned if I know why. This simple little game utilizes a large trackball controller to allow you to manipulate your in-game pug with the same kinds of motions that a flesh and blood pug may perform in real life. Using these controls, your aim is to interact with various aspects of an small park, but there’s a hitch. With only three action buttons at your disposal, you’ll have to sniff a fellow pug’s posterior in order to gain alternate abilities. Like leading a small group of pigeons in a group-pooping exercise.
The game has a long way to go before it’s more than just a lackadaisical small dog simulator, but the interface alone instills a lot of potential. Games about being real animals have really come into their own in recent years. It will be interesting to see if Butt Sniffin Pugs grows to meet the standards of all the Octodad and Catlateral Damage fans out there.
