Hawkflight Studios

Amoebunnies

A collaboration with a long time friend

February 5, 2010 Hawkflight

Cuteness overload

Some time in and around 2010, my good friend Darcy was showing off some pictures from her sketchbook. They were these translucent blobs with bunny ears which she called amoeba bunnies. At the time, I had been learning to write Android applications and wanted to try to put together a game. I thought these characters were a potential start and suggested the portmanteau of amoebunnies. Darcy agreed and our long journey began.

The first game idea centered around a bland bunny and janky mechanics. It didn't take long before we decided my game idea wasn't working out so we changed directions, though the basic mechanics idea became the foundation of my Echo Chamber project later on. At the time, Candy Crush was all the rage and our second attempt was to be a colorful game where bunnies would drop from the sky as they did in some of Darcy's original drawings. Matching colors would make the bunnies grow and you could pop them to clear.

Since we needed several colors for the game, Darcy designed 7 initial bunnies in different colors. They looked to have distinct personalities and were a great leaping off point. I decided to name each of them after their color in different languages. The original 7 were Roy, Cam, Buidhe, Midori, Sunil, Lavender, and Gwen. We next needed an obstacle to make the game a little harder, so we added a bunny who fell upside-down and landed on his head. He would be colored brown and named Harrumph.

As it turned out we were now approaching the fall of 2011. It was at this time that I was given the opportunity to join Electronic Arts and part of working there means you aren't allowed to develop games outside of work. Our project had to be dropped. While the game is unfinished, the base game play had been completed and can be downloaded here if you have an Android device to try it on. I apologize for the blaring Flight of the Valkyries when you first open it.

The Amoebunnies would take a back seat in both of our lives for some time, though there would be an occasional sketch by Darcy now and then to keep them in our minds. We always felt that the characters had a lot of potential but we couldn't figure out exactly what to do with them. It wasn't until I began a Twitch stream in 2017 that things picked up. I asked Darcy if I could theme my channel with the Amoebunnies and not only did she agree, she provided a lot of new artwork to help. We started to get our first bunny fans, some of who still follow us today.

While my regular streaming would only last about 9 months, my Discord server stayed alive and we continued sharing bunny emotes on holidays. We also shared some craft projects related to the bunnies. At the end of 2021 however, we got another push to try and take the Amoebunnies to a wider audience. Our original idea was for a series of children's books, but we settled on a board game. For the latest on what's happening with our Amoebunny friends, please visit our other site here.