Toot Tots: How a Silly Fart Idea Became a Party Game

Some games start with a plan. Toot Tots started with a joke. I wanted something really stupid and really funny to play with my friends and cousins. The idea was four babies in diapers, each with its own fart gun. If you get hit once, you turn red and have to run to the potty to cool down. If you get hit again while you are red, you puke, and you respawn at your potty.

That two-hit rule stayed from the first version to now. It is simple, and it creates funny moments: a red baby running across the map to a potty with two others chasing it. A red baby is a little slower, but it can still sprint, so the run to the potty is a real chase. At the potty you stay put for a moment while it flushes, then you are back to normal with a line like "minty fresh".

First a top-down party game

The first version was top-down, on one shared screen, with all-vs-all and teams. Two people on one keyboard plus controllers, and bots to fill the rest. The same day I wanted more. I asked for it to feel like Call of Duty: 3D, first person, a big map.

Then first person, in a daycare

The map became a daycare and a playground: Lil' Tooters Daycare, with bathrooms, a nap room with cribs, a ball pit you can hide in, toy tables to jump on, and outside a slide tower, a jungle gym, a sandbox, swings and a merry-go-round. Potties are spread around as safe zones.

Each baby got a personality and a gun:

• Big Burt with the Whoopee Bazooka, a big lobbed cloud that splashes everyone nearby.
• Lil' Beans with the Bean Pump. Point-blank is an instant puke, far away it is weak.
• Sneaky Sue with the Triple Toot, three quick toots per click at mid range.
• Rudy Toot with the Brrrap Gatling, a hose of tiny toots that jams when the diaper is full.

You can fart-jump in the air and use a butt-jet dash that leaves a gas trail. When you puke, the camera spins out and shows who got you. The bots are named things like Drooly Dan and Gassy Gus, and their brains are set to Dumb, Dumber or Dumbest.

A party edition for real friends

Once the shooting felt good, I asked for the things you need when friends are over. Everyone carries a sniper as well as their own gun, and a headshot is an instant puke. There is a capture the flag mode, and a second map called Pillow Fort Showdown. Potties move around so nobody camps. And split screen on one laptop, with up to four players and PS5 controllers.

The menu became a little toy-box stage where your baby stands on a pedestal and toots when you click it. At the end of a match the winners stand on a podium and cheer while everyone else sits in front of them, sobbing and puking.

Online, on this site

The last step was playing with friends who are not in the same room. Toot Tots now lives at wavebattler.com/toottots and uses the same room-code system as Wave Battler co-op. One player hosts and gets a 6-digit code, friends type it in, and bots take any empty slots. No sign-up. Before each match every real player gets 10 seconds to pick their baby.

It is still the same silly idea. Babies, diapers, farts, potties. But now it is a game I can play with friends and cousins wherever they are, which was the point. You can read more on the Toot Tots page.