Torque Voodoo Doll

Pocketwatch Games has taken a new step forwards today... we (I) hired our first full-time employee. Donnie Bugden immediately impressed me with his versatility and creativity, embodied in an interactive art exhibit he built in his spare time outside of art school. He built a real voodoo doll that is hooked up to a computer character (using the Torque Game Engine). The character is a middle-manager in an office (your boss), and you can poke the actual voodoo doll, causing the in-game character to writhe in pain appropriately for where you torture the poor guy.


You can see a demonstration of the voodoo doll on his website, www.bsidegames.com. Click on the entrance page to enter the site, then click on the first thumbnail to see the voodoo doll in action.

This project, entitled "Associate Assistant of Departmental Operations" has been written up on MTV, Kotaku, Wired News, VH1, and more. It has also been shown in the Chelsea Art Museum in NYC, the China Millennium Museum in Beijing, and the Landmark Bergen Kunsthall in Bergen, Norway.

Donnie, as described in his bio, "grew up fixing and breaking things (mostly breaking) in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Often to the dismay of much of his family, they found things like the tape recorder and television with its parts out and strewn across the floor." Donnie's built lots of other cool things, which you can see on his website. He's a versatile guy.

Donnie recently graduated from the Parsons School of Design with a BFA in Design and Technology. He worked for Gamelab as a tester while he was in school before he moved out here to sunny San Diego.

Donnie will be responsible for a number of different aspects of development here at Pocketwatch, including building and maintaining our web presence, 2d graphic design, User Interface design and implementation and more. Holy cow, this guy is awesome.

Anyways, I'm excited to be able to say that Pocketwatch is growing (slowly), and I'm ecstatic to say that Donnie is employee #2.