Game:

Duck Game (2014)

Duration: 18:19

41 views

1

Quack. Quack, quack? Quack, quack, quack, quack!
twitter.com/yuugijoou
discord.gg/bKT9pRW

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We decided to round out and end our relentless madcap quackery with one more test scenario... why? Because!

No, really... this one actually makes no sense. THIS game is actually really simple, and all participants already own it individually and have even played online together before!

Honestly, I have no real complaints about how Duck Game handles online, and I strongly advise literally anyone with even slight interest or inclination to just get it. Get it now! Play it online! Collect all your friends, ripe for slaughter, and then just have at them!

My only actual complaint before was the fact that CERTAIN individuals had notoriously problematic connections at the time, and the game itself is not shy about pointing this out as a general fact. (As if delayed jumping and skipping around wasn't enough of a dead duck giveaway.)

...but now that friend has actual working Internet. I can't believe it!

... ... ...so there's even less reason to have to resort to this. Parsec is totally, thankfully... entirely unnecessary! (For this particular use case, anyway.)

BUT! It's all the better that everyone involved already knows Duck Game fairly well. It means we know what to expect, how it should look and feel, and whether or not Parsec's network solution is operating at proper efficacy. This makes it a perfect control test group case study!

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I wish I actually had more to say about the test itself, but... it seems to have gone off without a hitch. So utterly seamlessly that no one had time to complain about the technical details.

Getting caught up in the abject zaniness of ducks rushing to murder one another on the spot is the surest sign that things are working sufficiently seamlessly and without external distractions.

Granted, this isn't exactly a VISUAL or traffic stress test by any means, so one SHOULD hope there are reasonably few distractions in that regard... but that just means all that's left is to consider the unsexy technically malarkey that is input fidelity. Y-yay?

Let me tell you, despite its simplistic style and unassuming appearance, Duck Game is no slouch in the input complexity department. You've got precision platforming controls, two action buttons, the all-important dedicated QUACK button, and a sneaky "play dead" toggle. If ANY of these crucial game functions becomes at all squirrely, you can bet you're going to feel it in a big way.

I take it as a sign of great success that a complete inability to be distracted by any of the underpinning reasons HOW this is even happening suggests that it's a technique more than ready to be rolled out to ever further experimentation, including on games WITHOUT dedicated online play, instead resorting to fake "local" play courtesy this miraculous little workaround.

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...I actually had no idea the endgame fanfare and celebration was so... extensive! Only ever playing this thing online is apparently a bigger sacrifice than I realized.

Maybe we should circumvent the dedicate in-game online multiplayer function more often!