lalala

Chewy game is a single player physical game made for both children and adults. This is a game that takes appropriation of Gummy Bears. Originally, I wanted to take advantage of the bouncy physical feature of the candies. Then I realized that Gummy Bears are linked to childhood memories for a lot of people. My friends told me that their parents would give them gummy bears as a reward for accomplishing goals. And they always appear when it was festival season and were giving out as a present… however, in my case, gummy bears are connected to the image of liquor and bar games. I used to love dipping the gummy bears in liquor bottles and took them out the next day. They will have a great taste and become 2 times bigger than before. I thought it would be interesting to take the form (of candy) and the mechanism of bar game (which are usually restricted to children) to make a game for children.

During playtesting, I got some playtester noted that this grab and throw mechanic is very similar to knucklebone game (jacks), a game that has multiple origins and is played worldwide. My cousin told me that my game remind him of Assyk, a traditional sport of Kazakh cultures, instead of gummy bears, they use real knucklebones of lambs.

Preparation:

a bag of gummy bears and take two of the same color’s (usually there will be 5 colors in a bag) and a plushie.

How to play:

1. Scatter these 10 gummy bears on table (shuffle?)
2. Throw the plushie up high (the higher the more time you got for picking the gummy bears.)
3. Speed Grab one gummy bear at a time and catch the falling plushie (with one hand).
4. Throw again and grab a pile of gummy bears (that should be 5 of them)
5. If failed to catch the plushie, discard all of the bears you have and start over.

Goal(s):

1. Because this is a game that takes practice to be good at, as you play longer you should be less hesitated and require less time to pick the gummy bears in correct colors.
2. Try not to fail catching the plushie

2nd iteration: (another version)

I thought I would be great to have the player eat the gummy bears at some point of the gameplay. Since it is edible and I gave the volunteer playtesters gummy bears as a reward anyways.

My professor suggested that this game is really about restriction. Both in time and physically. It is hard to catch and grab by only one hand. So I kind of wanted to push the limit of the restrictions (balance).

To make it easier, I replaced the plushie with a small beanbag.

1. Wash your hands & make sure the gummy bears are edible
2. Same as the old rules 1-5.
3. But this time, once you succeed one attempt to grab and catch, pass the gummy bear to your other hand.
4. Focus on this hand and throw up the gummy bear, quickly flip your hand and catch it by the back of your hand.
5. Balance and let it lying safely on the back of your hand while throwing up the beanbag using the other hand.
6. Grab & catch your next target
7. Congrats! This counts as a round and you can finally consume the gummy bear.
8. Repeat until you got (eat) all 5 of the gummy bears of different colors.