In the 1953 Looney Tunes cartoon Duck Amuck by Chuck Jones, an unseen animator bugs the crap out of Daffy Duck, with hilarious results. And this past year, a Nintendo DS game was made with that same concept and title. As a fan of cartoons, I was mildy curious about this game, but didn’t want to play full price for it. I’m sorry, GameCrazy, but it’s just not worth 35 bucks. Luckily I found it for 20 bucks elsewhere, so I decided to snag it.

Bascially the idea of the cartoon is the same as the DS game. With the stylus, poke, prattle, and prod Daffy on a white background until he gets mad at you. Visually and stylistically, this game is genius and the kind of game you’ll want to have on hand to show off the DS’ capabilities to friends. TONS of animation and voice. But just don’t show it to your friends for very long. Because as this is a video game, there has to be some kind of ‘game’ in here. And when you do certain things in Duck Amuck, it triggers a mini-game challenge. Unfortunately, many of these mini-games aren’t very good.

The mini-games really remind me of the ones found in the Feel the Magic and Rub Rabbits games, structurally and gameplay-wise. Like Feel the Magic, each game uses the DS’s touch screen, top screen, and or microphone as the game’s gimmick. To ‘pass’ a mini-game the first time, you must get through five levels of it. And then you can play it any time you want, with five more added levels after that, just like Feel the Magic. And you know how in Feel the Magic, during the story scenes if you touch a certain spot, you can unlock a little rabbit icon that can give you goodies like outfits for the lady character to wear? (I dressed up mine as Ulala, for those of you who care). Well the same thing happens in Duck Amuck, because if you touch a sparkly section during the ‘story’ parts of the mini-games, you can unlock character coins. Character coins unlock Looney Tunes characters that you can read about and color in the game’s coloring book mode.

After successfully playing a mini-game, Daffy’s ‘rage meter’ goes up. You want to try to get it to the top to beat the game. “Beating” the game took me about an hour, with an additional half hour to find most of the rest of the mini-games. So yeah, it’s short. As said earlier, you can play any mini-game after you first initially find it, but since Daffy doesn’t want to share the same screen with a menu, you first have to pick up Daffy with the stylus and toss him off screen!

Even though a lot of the mini-games aren’t very good, and the game is very short, I still think it’s worth it for me to talk about the mini-games because the premise is pretty creative. In most mini-games from other titles, your goal is to help the main character win. But since you’re trying to piss off Daffy in Duck Amuck, the goal of the mini-games is to make Daffy lose! And of course this involves lots of classic Looney Tunes gags. So here are the different mini-games in Duck Amuck:

Body Erase
To unlock this mini-game, tap one of the four corners of the screen to ‘rip’ it. This is harder than it sounds because it’s hard to find the exact spot to tap. Once the screen is ripped, Daffy will try and fix it with ‘duck’ tape. Tap the tape to start the mini-game. First, an eraser appears while Daffy talks, so use it to erase Daffy’s body and draw him a new one. Then with his new body, race against Cecil Turtle (you know, the guy from the Bugs Bunny cartoons). Slide the stylus forward to run faster, and slide up or down to jump or duck over hurdles. This one’s actually pretty easy.

Cross Country Kapoow!
Here’s another game triggered by ‘ripping’ the screen and clicking on ‘duck’ tape. Daffy is skiing and you have to tap the screen to make dyanmite fall on him. At first I thought you had to drag Daffy around to make him hit the dynamite. And you know what? I actually did better at this game when I did that!

Missing Duck Bill
Another ‘rip’ the screen unlockable. This time you must erase Daffy’s bill and draw him a new one. In the game, fling food from the bottom screen to the top and feed Daffy until he’s so fat that he explodes! This one’s actually pretty fun especially in the later levels when you have obstacles to bounce the food around to try to get it into Daffy’s bill. Plus I just like games where the main object is to eat (like Pac-Man).

Recording Gag
The last ‘rip’ the screen game isn’t really a game at all. After you click on the ‘duck’ tape, Daffy will start talking nonstop while a volume knob appears on the bottom corner. I’m not sure if you need to turn the volume off with the touch screen knob or the real DS volume control, but after you do, Daffy gets mad because he can’t talk any more. Then you play a ‘game’ to give Daffy a new voice. It’s just like the voice recorder in Electroplankton or Wario Ware Touched. Just something to play with, not really a game.

Deal the Cards
If you tap Daffy enough times, he gets annoyed and gets a few cans of paint from off screen. You can use the three different colors to drop paint either on Daffy or on the background to trigger six different mini-games. In this one, drop paint on Daffy to give him a cowboy costume. Have any of you ever played the card battle game in Chocobo’s Tales where you deal a card by sliding it with the stylus to the top screen? Well that’s basically what you do in this game. Deal the cards by sliding the correct card to the correct character on the top screen. The cards and places to slide them to are color coded with the character on the card, so it’s pretty easy. I think this game was based on the wild west cartoon where Daffy battles Nasty Canasta.

Duck Dodgers
Drop another color of paint on Daffy to give him a Duck Dodgers outfit. This mini-game is kind of hard to explain. You must activate the teleporter so it teleports Daffy in front of the disintergrator ray so it hits Daffy instead of Marvin the Martian. You have to keep cranking the wheel with the stylus to keep electricity going. You also have to make a path for the electricity to get to the teleporter by touching arrows. This part reminded me of the Pipe Dream game. And once it’s charged up, use the stylus to throw the lever to activate the portal so Daffy gets hit. Have you ever seen the new Duck Dodgers cartoon series on Cartoon Network and Boomerang? It’s actually pretty good. I like the episode where they make fun of Samurai Jack.

Robin Hood Daffy
Drop the last can of paint on Daffy to give him his Robin Hood outfit (Yikes! And away!). In this game, Daffy sends himself airborne with a giant bow and arrow. Your job is to blow into the microphone, keeping Daffy in the air. But since the object of these games is to make Daffy lose, you’ll want to make Daffy hit the sherriff of Nottingham at the end of the stage instead of flying over him. Pretty fun and you don’t have to blow so hard that you pass out either.

Exploding Piano
Drop paint on the background to make a concert stage. Daffy is the conductor and you’re the performer. This is a rhythm game using a piano with color coded keys. Play the right keys with the stylus as the notes go past. But watch out! Underneath one or more of the keys, you can see dynamite sticking out. Don’t play this key, play a key beside it instead. At the end of the round, Daffy will stomp up and down and say, “No! No! No! Play it like this!” And then he plays the song and hits the dynamite key and blows himself up. Do this enough times to win. Classic gag.

Load the Cannon
Drop another can of paint on the background to make a circus. Shoot Daffy out of a cannon to hit the barrel of TNT, not the target. This game reminds me of Scorched Earth. You have to adjust how much gunpowder you put in the cannon as well as the angle of the shot. It’s pretty hard.

Song and Dance Daffy
Drop the last can of paint on the background to make a vaudeville stage. Daffy is on stage dancing. This is like another rhythm game. Tap the right colored instrument and slide the stylus to keep in the white on the meter. But doing this actually makes the music sound off tune and out of rhythm, but that’s the way you want it. Do it like that long enough and Daffy loses his rhythm and gets booed off stage.

Diamond Mine, Mine!
Sometimes when you leave Daffy alone, he’ll think about what kind of video game he should be in. Lightbulbs will go over his head, and if you tap one, you’ll play a game. For the first lightbulb, Daffy says this should be a quest ‘adventure’ game, and as he talks, the screen (and Daffy) gets all Atari 2600 8-bit and pixelly. And Daffy says, “Oh great, this is one of those low res games from the 70’s (the title screen even says “Copyright 1979.”). In this game I think you’re supposed to drag the diamond around the maze and keep Daffy from getting it. I say “I think” because I can’t figure this game out. I can move the diamond around the screen, but I can’t figure out how to get it to the next room in the maze. Like I said before, not all games on here are good. Any help in figuring out this game would be appreciated, especially since I like parodies of old games.

Low Poly Daffy
Click on the second lightbulb and Daffy says this should be one of those new-fangled 3-D games with graphics up the wazoo (that’s where all the money is). Then a machine appears and Daffy enters it to make himself all 3-D. But when he comes out, he looks like a bad PSOne generation 3-D model and he says, “This is next-gen???” This mini-game is a parody of the old Stun Runner game. 3-D Daffy runs down a pipe away from a giant 3-D Marvin head, and you use the stylus to rotate the pipe. But since you want Daffy to lose, make him hit the bombs to slow him down instead of the speed arrows! At the end of the game, Daffy says he prefers sprites and pixels to 3-D any day. Amen to that, Daffy!

Use Your Noodle Soup
For the last lightbulb, Daffy says this should be one of those new mind-improvement games (somebody’s mind could use a little improving around here). This mini-game is both a parody of Brain Age AND Cooking Mama! On the top screen is a floating Bugs Bunny head, and like the doctor’s head from Brain Age, he spouts off useless brain tips like “A duck dinner is good brain food.” He also gives directions on which way to move the stylus to cut food. On the bottom screen, veggies fly over a pot and you use the stylus to cut them up and put them in the pot. You must slice in the right direction, and when the fire dies down, blow into the microphone to heat up the pot. When you’re all done, cut Daffy’s rope and in the soup he goes!

Daffy Divided
Activiate this game by simply swiping the stylus across Daffy to slice him in two. In this game, mini-Daffys run around and you must slice them all. They’ll split in two again and be smaller and smaller until they’re no more. Sometimes bombs will appear and you must use the stylus to fling them to the top screen. But that is easier said than done. For such a simple game, this one’s pretty tough.

Dipswitch Daffy
Sometimes things randomly appear on screen and if you click on them, a mini-game will begin. If you see a brightness meter, use the stylus to make the brightness go all the way up. Then the lights will burn out and Daffy will light a candle. This game is based on another classic Looney Tunes gag. Daffy runs up the stairs with a candle. Blow the candle out with the DS microphone and he’ll run back down the stairs in the dark. But if Daffy is holding dynamite, don’t blow on it and he’ll get blown up when he reaches the top. Remember, you’re trying to make Daffy lose. In later levels, water droplets will appear that can put out the dynamite fuse if Daffy passes under them. But if you blow in the microphone, Daffy will shield the spark on the fuse with his hand, but he’ll also stop. So you must time your blows so that he stops before the water dtop falls. Still pretty easy.

Duck and Cover
When a gas can appears, click on it to start the mini-game. This one’s for all you NASCAR fans out there. Daffy is in the pit crew to fuel up the cars. He’ll run around the screen, leaving a gas trail behind him. You must use the stylus to light a match and follow the gas trail until it hits Daffy and explodes. This game reminds me of Namco’s new arcade prize redemption game “Flaming Finger” or the unicycle game in Feel the Magic that gave me so much trouble.

My Own Stylus
Click on the TNT to start this one. Daffy gets fed up and gets his own stylus to battle YOU! He’ll vault up to the top screen and use his stylus to send dynamite down to the bottom screen. Draw lines on the bottom screen like trampolines to bounce the dynamite back up to him to blow Daffy up. It’s like the Mario 64 DS mini-game. Draw shorter lines to make the dynamite bounce higher. Remember this and the game is easy.

Recycle the Code
Tap the target with Daffy’s face on it and Daffy’s feet and hands get mixed up. Daffy then says there must be a bug in the game and pulls down a screen that has game code on it. In the game, Daffy runs around with a Recycle Bin and code scrolls down to the bottom of the screen. Click and move the green colored code lines into Daffy’s bin to fill it up to win. Watch out for red code, though. If you put that in Daffy’s bin, it acts as a power up, either good or bad. If you’re lucky, it’ll make the recycle bin bigger and easier for you to hit. But it can also make Daffy disappear for a while or make him move faster, which is bad for you. But it’s still not too hard. I’m sure there’s some inside jokes in this game for all you programming nerds.

Chat Spat
Sometimes you don’t have to do anything to unlock a mini-game, Daffy will just talk about it. In this one, Daffy says he keeps up with all the latest technology like e-mail and text messaging, and challenges you to a type-off. He then pulls down a screen that looks like Picto-Chat. What you must do is type the right words the instructions tell you to, and then it gets sent to the top screen. Use these text boxes to push Daffy up to the top and bonk his head on the ‘ceiling’ to win. Sometimes it’ll ask you to draw something, too. It’ll take any old blob as a picture, but at the end they ask you what one of your drawings is supposed to be, to zing you! The hard thing about this game is the keyboard and font and really small, and they ask you to type in a lot of text- and netspeak. Like “U R A PWNED NOOB.” Since I don’t do netspeak and text messaging, I have no idea what that means.

The Bleeding Black
This one is taken directly from one of the gags in the original Duck Amuck cartoon. Daffy will start talking about how today’s video games suck, and the top screen will start seeping black and hits him on the head. He’ll then get a stick to hold up the black. In the game, you must tap the stick to break them and make the black bonk Daffy on the head. Slide around the stylus to scoot the sticks around before breaking them. This one’s hard because Daffy keeps moving around and getting more sticks, and later on he’ll even bring out unbreakable bamboo sticks.

Color Coded Daffy
The menu screen says that to unlock this game you must drop items drawn over Daffy’s head. Well the only time this happened was when the game prompted me to follow the dotted lines to make an anvil over his head. I got halfway through drawing and the anvil just appeared and dropped on his head. But no mini-game happened. I haven’t seen that scene since, so I doubt I’ll be unlocking this game any time soon.

Dodge and Splat Daffy
The menu screen says that to unlock this mini-game you have to get all the character coins. Well I doubt that’ll be happening anytime soon either.

There’s one more mini-game that’s not listed on the menu. At one point, Daffy told me to close the DS screen and he kept talking to me while in sleep mode. He said there was a monster in the dark, and he could capture him if I pushed the L and R buttons when he said so, and only opened the DS when it was OK.

And that’s pretty much all there is to Duck Amuck. It’s too bad that this game is so short and some of the mini-games aren’t so good. Because you can really tell the rest of this game has some pretty high quality production values. And it was made by WayForward, who also recently did the Contra 4 DS game. I just wish WayForward would hurry up and make a Shantae DS game!

So tell me, what’s YOUR favorite Looney Tunes character(s) and cartoon(s)? I think my favorite character is Marvin the Martian. But I also like that singing frog. His name is Michigan J. Frog. When Jeff was really little, he would dance and sing the song that Michigan J. sings. Except Jeff didn’t know all the words so he made up his own! “Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal…um…Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday…hello my ragtime gal!” Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam is also cool. And I even like some of the new WB characters like Baby Plucky Duck (I wanna flush it again!), Wakko from Animaniacs, and Pinky & The Brain. But my favorite actual Looney Tunes cartoon has to be the one where a big tough bulldog tries to keep and protect a little kitten. I think it’s called “Feed the Kitty.”

That’s All, Folks! –Cary

Tags: Misc