Shutterbugs is a (currently demo only) chaotic 4-player photography game where you pilot a cute little drone-robot around and take photos of, amongst other things, a scub diver, numerous pirates, and business Cthulhu.

It was produced in collaboration with Dr. Alan Meades, my teaching colleague on the Games Design BA at Canterbury Christ Church University. I built the game in GameMaker Studio 2 and Alan produced all of the pixel-art (with a couple of contributions from students which snuck in at the last minute!)

Over the course of 2 months, we made Shutterbugs to sit alongside an exhibit of British seaside photography curated by https://www.seasphotography.org.uk/. What started as an abstract Where’s Wally based game of competitive person-finding quickly became seaside themed and loosely based on “walkie” photography; where mid-century professional photographers would take seaside portraits on-the-fly.

Shutterbugs was made for exhibition alongside a collection of British seaside photography curated by www.seasphotography.org.uk. It took just over two months and was developed to work inside a four-player arcade cabinet custom built for the exhibition at the Daphne Oram building at Canterbury Christ Church University.

All environment art by Alan Meades. Most character art by Alan Meades with a few additions from students on the Games Design BA course at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Shutterbugs currently only works with 4 players and 4 controllers, as it was built for display in a custom arcade cabinet. You can download a PC demo version at https://warlockdad.itch.io/shutterbugs.

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