"Butter Royale" came out of a pun.
"We were about to fly to San Francisco," said Benjamin Chevalier, co-founder of Mighty Bear Games, and the ideas came gushing forth: "Leek of Legends," "San Francheesco," "The Walking Bread" — then "Butter Royale."
As the name implies, the Apple Arcade title is a battle royale game with a family-friend dynamic. Instead of guns, players blast food at each other with weapons called Breadzookas and hot-dog miniguns.
It's a high-tech food-fight that unfolds from a top-down perspective. Players can use the touch-screen or the controller to battle against foes. It feels like a twin-stick shooter but "Butter Royale" has elements you would see in games such as "Dota 2."
Players pick a spot to start, and immediately they have to find a firearm. The melee weapon won't do if players want to survive against the other 31 competitors or seven other teams if they're playing in squads of four.
The game supports 32 players in all. They'll need to grab the right weapon, pick up armor, find health packs and scavenge for ammo. They'll constantly have to be on the move because the area of play shrinks.
A hot-butter hazard will knock out anyone caught outside the safe zone, and as the area of play shrinks, the match grows intense.
"Butter Royale" captures the essence of the genre and wraps it in an accessible package. "We make social games, nontoxic ones," Mighty Bear's Phylicia Koh said. "We want to make them accessible. We don't want to dumb down the genre, though."
One of "Butter Royale's" better twists is that the game speeds up the process with matches lasting about five minutes or so. Players can hide in tents or bushes and ambush unsuspecting players.
In addition, each weapon has its own quirks. The shotgunlike Butter Blaster is great at close range while the Snipermesean rifle can do heavy damage from afar but it has a charge time and takes great skill to use.
The game features 52 characters so far with more in the works. Chevalier says the game will have a seasonal model with long-term goals of expanding the game modes and even adding a short miniseries designed to raise awareness of the game.
