We talk about game development a lot here on Kotaku Australia, but it’s pretty rare that we get a chance to show off what the very early stage of development looks like. And it’s even rarer when those early stages also involve … Mark Bonanno from Aunty Donna and Nathan Fillion?
Bonanno is no stranger to video games – he’s been on gaming podcasts and has a fairly sizeable Twitch following — but this is the first instance I know of where Bonanno’s contributed VO to a game.
It’s a student project that, for now, is called the Mechanical Pencil Terrorist. Posted on Facebook by one of the creators, the idea is that the game lives within an unfinished game, and it’s meant to help players learn some crucial design principles.
That’s intriguing enough, but what really makes this is how well Bonanno sells the principle. The terrorist in question is a rabbit, which is cute enough, but it’s Bonanno’s delivery that caps it off. Honestly, you’re not ready for all the places this goes.
I asked Sean Casey, one of the student developers who posted the footage, about the project and they explained that the Australian comedian was providing more than just VO for the storyboard. The Aunty Donna member also has another couple of cameos, according to Casey.
“Mark makes a few extra cameos in our game as well,” Casey explained over Facebook. “There’s a button the player interacts with where Mark becomes increasingly turned on [and] he voices the enemies when we are teaching the player shooting.”
The game is still in “deep development” and is still a few months from “officially being finished”. Casey described it as a “meta game”, so it’s not a massive project by any means. But it’s still cool to see something in this stage of development, but also how something at this stage of development can really come together with the right execution.
Also: authentic Australian voices make everything sound better.
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