01 / Churn
Work The Plunger
The prototype registers a churn press through contact at the bottom of the controller. Repeated presses drive the butter-churning competition on screen.
Alt Ctrl / Physical Computing / PvP
Butter
Beatdown
A butter-churning party game where the competition happens in your hands.
Grab a wooden churn, work the plunger, and compete with the players beside you. Butter Beatdown turns the familiar motion of making butter into a physical PvP game, with clogging and recovery interrupting the rush to keep churning.
My Role
Game Designer / Fabricator / Physical Computing / Unity Coordinator
01 / Gameplay
Step Up To The Churn
Players, controllers, and the shared screen come together in this festival gameplay capture.
Butter Beatdown In Play
Churning becomes a shared physical performance as players compete side by side.
Open full video ↗02 / Game Loop
Churn. Clog. Recover.
The loop ties a direct physical action to a pacing problem: keep making progress while managing the risk of a clog.
02 / Pace
Watch The Clog
A clog interrupts progress. Churning, combo behavior, and recovery make the rhythm of play matter alongside the speed of each press.
03 / Recover
Get Back In
The tested controller used a sideways tap to clear a clog. Playtesting exposed how difficult that second action could be to read and perform reliably.
03 / Fabrication & Physical Computing
Inside The Wooden Churn
The controller build brings together a wooden barrel and plunger, metal contact surfaces, wiring, and a spring return. The process photos show the parts that turn a familiar object into a repeatable game input.
Assembled Controller Test
Repeated presses on the finished wooden churn.
Open controller test ↗Plunger Mechanism Test
A closer look at the stick and return assembly in motion.
Open plunger test ↗04 / KCRW Playtest · June 26
When Physical Effort Becomes Friction
The playtest notes identified problems in input force, controller stability, feedback, and pacing. These observations informed the team's next iteration priorities.
Force & Travel
Some players struggled to press hard enough to trigger progress. Others lifted the plunger through its full travel even though the game only checked contact at the bottom. One controller's top was damaged during play.
Iteration priority: make the required motion clearer and revisit resistance, travel limits, and the strength of the top assembly.
Side Tap & Stability
The sideways recovery action felt inconsistent, and players moved the churns across the table. Loose wires tangled, disconnected, or were pulled into the barrels.
Iteration priority: constrain the recovery motion, anchor the controllers, improve wire routing, and make disconnecting a controller easier.
Pacing & Feedback
Clogs occurred too often, while unpredictable physical input made combos difficult to sustain. Players also needed clearer audio cues and a more legible clogged state.
Iteration priority: slow the clog buildup, shorten recovery, make combos more forgiving, and restore distinct sound cues for churning, clogging, and round transitions.
Teach Before The Round
Operators had to explain the controls individually, and confusion persisted even with that help.
Iteration priority: add a consistent, repeating introduction that demonstrates the controls and establishes the game's story and characters.
05 / Design Exploration
A Wild West With Cattle In Charge
The design boards explore a comic setting and character systems for Butter Beatdown's next iteration.
Welcome To Dairyville
After the town's cattle revolt, humans are forced to compete for their amusement in the gladiatorial sport of Butter Beatdown. The proposed tone brings WarioWare-style absurdity to a Western setting, with exaggerated characters and deliberately ridiculous props.
The visual exploration draws on Jorge R. Gutierrez and Nintendo, considering both photobashed Western environments and illustrated backgrounds.
The “Final Churn”
A proposed special meter rewards churning without clogging, with combos accelerating its charge. Once ready, a Final Churn would prevent a clog and activate a character-specific effect.
The concepts include Jill Lone-star's pressure on the leading opponent, Redd Woods' temporary scoring boost, and Jackie Lope's risky burst of faster meter gain. These remain design proposals rather than confirmed features of the footage shown here.
06 / Project Credits
The Team
Andrew Villasenor
Game Designer / Unity Engineer
Bowen Shi
Game Designer / Fabricator / Physical Computing / Unity Coordinator
Galina Zhu
UI/UX Designer / Fabricator / Physical Computing