SK Games, 2014

One of our most widely-shown games, Catnips was originally a controller concept. Based around the idea "if 4 gamepads were covered with fur the joysticks would look like nipples", catnips became a 2 player cat-milking game with CC and Maxine, the two cat controllers made by Sofie Mather. Two mother cats lay on their backs in a virtual living room, surrounded by kittens of different colours. The physical representations of the cats both have 8 nipples that can be pushed in any direction to spray milk, ideally feeding the kittens of your colour and winning the game. The cats were created from scratch by Sof, including plastic pink nipple covers on each of the protruding joysticks.

Exhibiting this game has been a joy, as the idea of milking cats sits very close to uncomfortable for some people. It's also a great example of videogames existing in a physical space, and what that affords players. For example, multiple players can use the same cat, players can physically obstruct rivals from using their cat, anything goes and we encourage creative cat milking.

The cats have travelled to New York for an exhibition at Babycastles(2015), Austin for the Fantastic Arcade opening party(2015), and various places across Australia. They now reside at Bar SK, where they're displayed any time we get the chance.

Video Link

Bar SK, 2017
Mod of Wolfenstein 3D by ID Software, 1992

Created for the dog exhibition at Bar SK, Woof 3D was directly inspired by a bad pun made by Dayvid Clark. I modified the original Wolfenstein 3D to remove the nazis and replace them with dogs. With a small cosmetic change the dogs went from attacking you to simply jumping up on you wanting a pat. Luckily I replaced the knife with a friendly hand, so the player can wander the level and pat all the dogs until they fall asleep, which is nice. The controller was made from a plush dog I think I found at Ikea, with a patting button on top of its head. Underneath is a simple joystick for movement.

Included in the download with the mod is the original software and modding tools, and I heavily encourage anyone interested to poke around and see what they can do with the tools available.

Download Link

Bar SK, 2018
Mod of Doom, by ID software, 1993

Created for the Good Beer Games Week exhibition at Bar SK, Brew Doom is an aesthetic mod of Doom, replacing the weapons with local craft beers that were all available behind the bar. Oh, there was also a bunch of brewery graffiti on the walls, to represent the ones that were on tap at the time and couldn't feature as weapons. The controller used old arcade buttons and a joystick, including a reset button that would take the player back to the start of level 1, and a hidden cheat code. By pressing the buttons for previous weapon and next weapon simultaneously, a cheat was activated giving the player all the weapons, which is great when you're trying to show off all the weapons you've modified.

I used Doom because it's very exhibition-friendly, as well as being easily identifiable by a wide range of people including those who don't consider themselves games literate. By using an existing game, I wanted to highlight the changes I'd made, and only put the effort into the things I found important, which in this case was integrating local craft beers. This is one of the main reasons I love modding.

Download Link

Bar SK, 2017
Webcam based Space Invaders-like

Created for the XXXhibition at Bar SK, this was originally called Fuck Space Invaders. The game consists of 4 elements; a background, a player that can move side to side and shoot, enemies that come down the screen from above and can be shot, and the "bullet" that is shot from the player. Each element is displaying a section of a webcam feed, so players are encouraged to draw the elements on a template paper and place it under the webcam. I wanted players to experiment with different combinations, and as it was for the XXXhibition, plenty of sexual organs were drawn. Some players used magazine cutouts or their phones placed under the webcam as well, which was definitely encouraged.

This game was reworked into a more classic space invaders type game, but I'm still playing with different configurations. If you want the source file hit me up!