FlapDoodle
Client: Wiggity Bang Games - Imagination Games
Project: Character, Brand, Product and Game Development

After the guys over at Wiggity Bang Games saw success with Quelf, they wanted to get another game out there to sell. The idea was to create a Junior edition of Quelf. They had a playable wireframe created but no visual idea what it should look like. They did know they wanted to reuse some of the more popular characters from Quelf while including some new characters they came up with (Pirate Luigi Pepperoni, Bobert and KP131).

They showed the game to Matt and asked if he had any ideas on visually. Matt at the time was in the process of showing his stepdaughters all the cartoons, movies and shows he grew up on, so he instantly had ideas. Taking his lead from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the classic Looney Tunes cartoon riff below, he wanted to create a frantic, fast paced, fun visual to fit the style of this game.



His idea was that while traveling, these six Quelfians accidently stumbled upon, and got themselves locked in a candy factory. The only way out was to hitch a ride on the assembly line to get to the loading dock and find the exit.

Characters above:
Batbileg Chinzorig - A really old bat with a cool name, who loves hip hop music.
Pirate Luigi Pepperoni - Feared by almost no one, this pirate’s favorite thing to do is eat pizza.
Super Ninja Monkey - A sassy monkey and master of the samurai banana.

Characters above:
Bobert the Robot - A happy little electronic guy that bleeps and blips his way through life.
KP 131 - A friendly visitor from outer space who can’t read a map, took a wrong turn near Saturn and ended up here.
The Platypus - A water animal who wears pink floaties because, of course, she’s afraid of the water.

The board spaces became the assembly line. To show forward movement, Matt came up with the idea that this assembly line would show the process of GumDrops being produced (the coloring, the drying process, the inspection, etc., etc.) to move them along.

The game moved on three types of cards you could draw from a stack. A Flapdoodle Move Ahead card, a Ms. Goody GumDrops card and a Mr. SourFace card.

Matt concepted, created and illustrated all the components you see above. Unfortunately, the game didn't see the success that Quelf did but however, it got great reviews, Showed up on a bunch of store shelves (WalMart, Borders, Barnes & Nobles and Wegmans) and is a steal for 5 bucks at your local 5 Below stores.