During our time in the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023, we got to meet with Takahiro Miyazawa with his gallery of innovative games using unconventional control methods.

At Takahiro Miyazawa’s booth, we got to try out 3 of his creations, namely Give Me Toilet Paper!, Gloves & Peace, and Popsicle Stick Memorials. Each of these titles uses a different control method to play and each of them is unexpectedly weird and unconventional compared to traditional games.

Give Me Toilet Paper!

The first game we got to try from Takahiro Miyazawa was “Give Me Toilet Paper!”, an action platformer game for the Nintendo Switch.

As the name implies, the game’s main objective is all about bringing toilet rolls to a character. However, rather than traditional controllers, the game requires you to place a Joy-Con into a toilet roll and move it around using gravity and motion on top of a flat cardboard you hold by your chest.

As the toilet paper rolls left or right, the same happens on the screen and players have to utilize physics to travel to the end while avoiding traps. A rather innovative and fun take on a physics-based platformer.

Miyazawa-san recommends using a 2-ply toilet paper for the best experience while playing the game, as 3-ply rolls are too thick and much harder to roll back and forth. For anyone interested in the game, it is currently available for download digitally via the Nintendo eShop.

Gloves & Peace

Another one of Miyazawa-san’s weird creations is Gloves & Peace, which uses a turntable-like controller with a glove attached on top.

Gloves & Peace is an arcade-style game in which players place their hand on the glove of the turntable-like controller and follow the gestures displayed on the screen, clicking the buttons using the right fingers to score a peace sign as points.

Furthermore, the controller is styled like a turntable as it could be rotated to a specific angle for players to precisely follow the on-screen gesture, which greatly tests the player’s hand-eye coordination.

At the moment, Miyazawa-san has no plans to release Gloves & Peace as the game is a passion project created to be brought to exhibitions like the Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023.

Popsicle Stick Memorials

The next in line of Miyazawa’s innovative yet weird creation is Popsicle Stick Memorials, a game with a visual aesthetic inspired by classic fantasy JRPGs like Dragon Quest and Chronic Trigger.

In this game, the player is part of a party of heroes, but instead of being the one who slays the monsters, they are the last in line to help bury the corpses of the fallen enemies.

As the game’s name may suggest, the method of play is to use popsicle sticks and stab them into a sandpit, emulating the feel of burying fallen monsters. The gameplay goes as the hero party moves automatically and slays any incoming monsters, and the player has to time the popsicle sticks as they insert them into the sandpit whenever their character is close to the fallen enemies.

Another arcade-style game that tests the player’s hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Like the aforementioned Gloves & Peace, Miyazawa-san currently has no plans to release Popsicle Stick Memorials and the game serves more as a fun project to be shared in conventions and exhibitions.

These are just some of Takahiro Miyazawa’s innovative and fun games that also use unconventional control methods. If you are interested in his work, you can follow his official Twitter account or check out his portfolio.

For more information about Busan Indie Connect Festival 2023: