Perth, WA, 2014.
Hardware: Mitsubishi Magna 2000 (front half)
Software: Bush Bash by SK Games

A two player co-op game, Bush Bash was played by a driver and a passenger. The driver used the original steering wheel to position the car on the road, avoiding obstacles and collecting fuel. The passenger used a light gun to shoot at the screen, blowing up enemy cars, motorbikes and helicopters before they destroyed the players. The controller was the front half of a car, modified with a screen instead of a dashboard, pushed up to a wall where the screen is projected, as if the road extends into the wall.

The car was modified by cutting it in half, removing the engine, and attaching a stand below the cutting point. The passenger side had a large reload button fitted, alongside 12 LEDs indicating the ammo count of the passenger. The driver used the original steering wheel, fitted with a potentiometer but still attached to the front wheels, giving resistance and making it easier to move the car when setting up. The pedals were removed and replaced with pedals from an old driving controller. The screen that replaced the dashboard showed the score (in Kilometres), fuel and speed. There was also a simple 4 button controller replacing the radio, which was used to control the music coming through the door speakers.

It was made over three months in Perth, and appeared in our backyard and a local punk gig at The Bakery. Moving it and setting it up was a huge hassle, and it was really created for the backyard parties at the SK office. It spent a few years under a tarp on a rural property in south west WA before being revived, cleaned and slightly repaired in preparation for shipment to London for the V&A's Videogames exhibition. Who knows where it'll end up.

Video Link

Melbourne, VIC, 2015.
Hardware: 4 x 8" Classic Dongs
Software: Magnetic Arseholes (renamed Genital Jousting) by Freelives

After seeing this game being played at Super Friendship Arcade in Cape Town I really wanted to show it in Australia. The last leg of that trip was Melbourne during the 2015 games week, where I had been asked to be a part of a warehouse party called Inward Goods. The theme for the party was "intimate" and I had contacted the developers with an idea I had for a controller. I mounted 4 regular 8-way arcade joysticks in old drawers from the side of the road and mounted an 8" floppy dildo on each one. The success was not just in the thematic resemblance, but through the way it made people question if they wanted to play the game, and prepared them for the content they were about to engage with.

I've recreated the controller a few times since then, most notably for the launch party of Genital Jousting, by then an 8 player game. I've sent a set up to Queensland, and showed the originals at PAX Australia. Using sex toys as game controllers is a really interesting avenue of experimentation for me, as my work deals with games in public spaces, and these objects are usually very private.

Los Angeles, USA, 2016
Hardware: Buttons, flick switch and plenty of pink velvet
Software: Win to Lose, Lose to Win by Corazon Del Sol, Archie P, Oscar David Alvarez

I was contacted in early 2016 by a friend of mine connecting me with Corazon Del Sol, an artist from LA who was interested in a non-phallic joystick controller. She was working on a very simple game where a character would navigate a 3D environment littered with representations of real world artworks. The artworks were a selection of works by Corazon, her mother and her grandmother. The resulting space was a celebration of three generations of amazing women artists, and to navigate it with a joystick would feel too phallic. I was suggested by our mutual friend because I knew just how phallic a joystick could be.

Sofie Mather and I went in the complete opposite direction, making our controller as vaginal as possible. The character was set in a forward motion by flicking the clitoris switch, and pressing the labia would alter the direction left and right. If the character got stuck, the player would have to insert their finger into a small anus-like opening on the side of the controller to hit the reset button. I could only fit my little finger in there.

The controller is off somewhere, presumably still in the care of Corazon, if you see it send me a photo!

Edinburgh, UK, 2015
Hardware: Clay Skull, Metal Washer Teeth, Emirates Toothbrush
Software: Untitled Toothbrushing Game by Louie Roots

On a particularly eventful flight from Cape Town to Copenhagen I was upgraded to business class and given a free toothbrush. While visiting Denmark, I bought some air dry clay and created a small skull with a washer embedded in each of its ten teeth, all wired up to a keyboard encoder. I ran the ground wire through the toothbrush, and when the teeth were brushed a connection was made and the computer could tell which tooth was active. I showed my friends at my old office in Aarhus, but I had no idea what to do with it.

A few weeks later I was in Edinburgh, chatting with the organisers of an event called We Throw Switches, who offered me a small space to show something. I went back to the airbnb and created some basic software that gave scores for brushing different teeth, then displayed the score and reset. I set it up with a mini projector and a notepad for players to write their highscore. Through the night the toothbrush wore away the teeth and the game became harder and harder to play. By the end of the night there were two teeth left, and I ceremoniously destroyed the skull and the game, deleting both forever. This was the main inspiration behind the Delete Jam years later, especially as the graphics for the digital part of the game were created by glitching 3D models, meaning even if I recreated the software I'd never end up with exactly the same skull model, it's gone along with the physical skull controller.

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Perth, WA, 2013
Hardware: Ikea wooden boxes, deconstructed pallets, kangaroo fur
Software: Gundash by SK Games

These podiums were some of my first attempts at creating multiple controllers that would plug into a central unit. The cables coming from each controller ended in VGA connections, which meant they could be screwed in to the main unit securely, although all those little pins were a nightmare. The podiums themselves were simple wooden storage crates from Ikea, with scrap wood from deconstructed pallets added. Each podium contained two 8-way arcade joysticks and one rectangular start button.

The game, Gundash, is cowboy themed, with each player a different colour. Sofie Mather and myself cut more scrap wood, stained it and painted each podium to represent the characters. On top Sofie covered the surface with kangaroo hide, shaved down to more closely represent cow hide. The tactility of the fur was an amazing addition to controller, and matched the game perfectly. The hides are currently on the wall near the bathrooms at Bar SK.

Video Link

Melbourne, VIC, 2017
Hardware: 7x7 grid of flick switches
Software: Untitled by Katie Stegs and Louie Roots

This controller was created as a surprise for Katie Gall, who had spoken to me about this idea of a grid of switches previously. I liked the thought of a switch as a physical malleable object, like clay or sand, and created this board as a prototype. 49 was just the maximum number of switches I could be bothered wiring up at the time, but I'd love to do a bigger one.

Katie and I put together a very simple physics-based game that would use the switchboard, and exhibited it at the No Arcade party in Melbourne, October 2017.