By Alec Meer on March 1st, 2011 at 9:24 pm.
It is a fine week for PC game releases. As well as Bit.Trip Runner we have Trion’s glossy MMO Rift arriving today, and at last the chaotic local multiplayer minigame collection B.U.T.T.O.N. (Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now) is also available for download. Described as a party game, it’s also very close to a literal fighting game. I witnessed a collective of RPS contributors warring over it at the EG expo last year, which resulted in the likes of Kieron, Quinns and LewieP quickly devolving from curious onlookers to a mass of flailing limbs, crushed spectacles and guttural screaming. The video below demonstrates how it goes, but picture it with ungainly bespectacled men and you’ll have some sense of the true wonder/horror of this keyboard-mangler.
They’re all so polite! You probably won’t be. You’ll almost definitely punch someone in the nose, in fact. I know I would.
BU.T.T.O.N. is incredibly cheap – just a couple of dollars/pounds – and is available direct from the Danish devs, or via Steam. I rather suspect that this is one game that will work rather well with the latter’s impending TV mode.
Also, you can totally play it on a boat:
More videos and mini-game descriptions over yonder.
01/03/2011 at 21:36 Brumisator says:
This looks like a fairly terrible idea. Setting up a PC and 4 controllers in a big open space just to play a party game.
I won’t comment on the behaviour of those people…it requires no comment.
01/03/2011 at 22:16 Dominic White says:
The game is pretty clearly designed with laptops in mind. Desktop machines need not apply. The gameplay video on the Steam store shows you how it’s meant to work.
01/03/2011 at 23:08 kwyjibo says:
It’s great that digital distribution can make this a product, and that there’s fewer middlemen and everyone can publish. But this is nothing more than a prototype.
It’s just too impractical on PC. No one has 4 controllers, are you just going to make them hit things on the keyboard? The most important bit in the Steam trailer, is the bit where one of the guys opens the fridge to grab a beer.
Chris Hecker’s finish your game rant applies. Finish your game and build it for a platform which would work. We Dare looks more promising than this.
01/03/2011 at 23:44 somnolentsurfer says:
The Steam page says you can play four player with one pad.
01/03/2011 at 23:52 v21 says:
And if you don’t have a pad, you can push buttons on the keyboard. (Q, C, N and P, from memory)
And hey, they have built it for platforms where it would work – I’ve played it on a laptop, and had fun. And it’s out on the Xbox, too. And they take it to all kinds of indie parties, which is I guess where it works best. They’ve even made a version which is attached to a wearable suit, which may well be the ultimate form. It’s one thing to tussle over a controller, it’s another when the controller can tussle back.
I don’t begrudge them giving us mere mortals who aren’t at their super-cool GDC parties the chance to play. Or the chance to give them money.
(Also! The Steam version has some extra content I can’t currently recall. The one from their site has a naughtiness/adult slider.)
Oh, and yes, drinking and playing do go together very well.
01/03/2011 at 21:36 The_B says:
On A Boat: The only acceptable form of Game Piracy. YARRR!
01/03/2011 at 21:42 pipman3000 says:
this is a terrible idea we have nowhere near enough friends to play a game such as this.
01/03/2011 at 22:03 Benjamin L. says:
You.
In your room. Alone.
You hold the button on the controller for the requisite 7 seconds.
You win. And sob silently.
01/03/2011 at 22:40 McDan says:
I did that..
Great fun!
01/03/2011 at 22:09 dawnmane says:
This makes me so proud to be Danish – for once.
Rant with weird Scandinavian letters coming up:
Der er SÅ meget nogle møgunger på den gode måde, dem der har lavet det her! Det er så fed og original en ide at lave en spilform, hvor spillerne er nødt til at overholde nogle regler, spillet ikke kan holde for dem (en slowmotionrunde, for eksempel), samtidig med at de bliver nødt til at være nogle værre banditter ;) Genialt!
Eat that, Google Translate ;)
01/03/2011 at 22:21 EthZee says:
Ooh! I think I know what this means!
02/03/2011 at 09:18 Jonas says:
You seem to have a language problem, Dawnmane. Let me help you with that.
I hate to see the language slaughtered by Google Translate. You’re welcome.
01/03/2011 at 22:20 Barnaby says:
And so Google Translate shall eat it… and poop out:
“There is SO much some brats in the good way, those who have made it here! It is so bold and original an idea to make a game mode where players have to follow some rules, the game can not keep them (a slow motion wave, for example), while they will have to be some worse bandits; ) Brilliant!”
Thank you Google Translate!
(Aw, this was supposed to be a response.)
01/03/2011 at 22:27 dawnmane says:
that’s actually like 40% accurate! I’m actually impressed, I expected it to come up with complete gibberish.
01/03/2011 at 23:56 Norskov says:
Wow, it actually reads like a Danish person speaking english ;)
01/03/2011 at 22:33 kristian says:
Erm.. what do you actually pay for?
for the game to tell you to take 4 steps back and race to the computer?
01/03/2011 at 22:44 Kieron Gillen says:
Probably. It’s awesome!
KG
01/03/2011 at 23:01 phuzz says:
Five steps dammit, stop cheating!
01/03/2011 at 23:22 Rikard Peterson says:
Four steps when on a boat, or you fall into the sea!
02/03/2011 at 00:13 The_B says:
kristan: Yet people seem to have no problem paying to press a button and VIRTUALLY walking five steps?
02/03/2011 at 08:39 Harlander says:
Take care, The_B. Pull too hard on that thread, and everything falls apart.
02/03/2011 at 15:40 The_B says:
Harlander – man, I hope pulling on threads is one of the minigames.
01/03/2011 at 22:58 pakoito says:
Isn’t that mohawk chap the guy from Discovery’s Prototype This?
Anyway I tried to buy the game but it kept refusing my paypal.
01/03/2011 at 23:21 Lewie Procter says:
I think I lost the game, but managed to inflict the most damage.
I AM A STRONG MAN.
02/03/2011 at 00:03 x25killa says:
Yeah, there’s going to be plenty of bloodshed thanks to this game.
02/03/2011 at 00:24 Curvespace says:
Hmm, this game might not be so good for me. I’m a killing machine.
02/03/2011 at 01:19 Rowsdower says:
I’m quite sure If I got my friends together to play this it would simply devolve into a drunken brawl by round two, it may be for some but best I hide the notion of it diligently.
02/03/2011 at 01:42 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
The site says it has steam achievements. But from what i understand, the game just tells you to do things in the.. umm, physical world, which you have to keep your real life friends from doing. How the hell are the achievements supposed to work?
Also, this game is so utterly cheap, you can just decide to buy it spontaneously once you told your frends about it, someone dug out a controller and everyone chipped in some money.
02/03/2011 at 01:44 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
oh and also: is it one of those awesome deals where the game bought directly from the developers also registers on steam?
02/03/2011 at 03:05 Pantsman says:
>Soundtrack by Nifflas
Sold.
02/03/2011 at 03:08 Tokamak says:
From what I’ve seen of the video, it looks like less playing the game and more the game playing you. I’m not sure how to feel about that.
Loving the music though – Nifflas had always made amazing soundtracks in my opinion.
02/03/2011 at 03:27 Vaerriek says:
I’d end up german suplexing everyone i was playing with.
02/03/2011 at 05:31 donmilliken says:
I certainly welcome any and all games that come to PC and welcome all sorts of experimentation in those games, but this isn’t a PC game. It’s a console game, for people with a big screen tv and a big room to put it in and four controllers and three or more friends to invite over.
On PC this is at best a novelty few people will have the means to play optimally and the patience to play in whatever weird crippled way the game lets you if you don’t have the proper peripherals.
As someone else pointed out this is a prototype. An interesting one to be certain, but for the vast majority of PC gamers it will remain an interesting prototype rather than a fun game.
02/03/2011 at 06:31 Adamamam says:
“here at the Young Persons Academy of Abstinence, Faith and Wholesome Fulfilment, we know how to have fun and let off steam…”
02/03/2011 at 09:49 Kieron Gillen says:
(You know when I was a youth, we brought our joysticks around to our friends house when we wanted to play multiplayer.)
KG
02/03/2011 at 15:42 The_B says:
People should totally play this with plastic instrument controllers. Half the fun would be getting them through public transport!
02/03/2011 at 18:56 Dances to Podcasts says:
Leave it to Kieron to bring the double entendres.
02/03/2011 at 11:05 Turbobutts says:
Looks like a brilliant idea if you’re looking for a way to slowly trash your controllers.
02/03/2011 at 13:02 Kieron Gillen says:
(In passing, people who are down on this are absolutely being crossed off my secret list of people who I would invite to an awesome RPS party.)
KG
02/03/2011 at 16:06 Rei Onryou says:
I saw you play this at the EG Expo. Needless to say, you were a natural. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing you grabbing Quinns’ crotch. That or I’ve just revealed my RPS slashfic fantasies…
02/03/2011 at 18:49 Kieron Gillen says:
By Any Means Necessary.
KG
02/03/2011 at 13:38 AbyssUK says:
Needs Kinect support
03/03/2011 at 02:14 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
this sounds somewhat comparable to you dont know jack.
REVIVAL!