Funny Game Pigeon Characters

Oct 29, 2018 - Vector illustration of Cartoon funny Pigeon bird presenting. Download a Free Preview or High Quality Adobe Illustrator Ai, EPS, PDF and High Resolution JPEG versions.

Whether you live in America or are just an outside observer, you know the stakes are high in the U.S. 2020 Presidential Election. Both sides have a lot to lose if they’re not elected in November. But why can’t the election be fun? Game developers Sassan Yousefi and Hossein Shahbazi are trying to do just that with their mobile game Pigeon POOlitics.

If the emphasis on poo wasn’t obvious enough, Pigeon POOlitics allows you to take on a group of pigeons and poo all over the candidate you want. But it’s more than just a silly political game. Pigeon POOlitics allows gamers to also see how other people playing the game voted. Plus, there’s educational tools in the app to help others learn about the upcoming election.

Pigeon POOlitics is on the Google Play and Apple App Stores now, for the world to enjoy. We spoke with Sassan and Hossein about the game and their journey into game development.

What drew both of you to game design initially?

Sassan: I think of making a game as making a new world. You make the world engaging and fun! You can use your creativity to design and make all of the details of this handmade world. It feels like you are acting as God!

Hoss: I have been a gamer and have played at least a few thousands of hours. I see games as a more immersive medium for storytelling. The same way a movie is a more stimulating medium than a book, a game is even more interactive and stimulating as you affect the world around you.

I enjoy creating things and have made small games here and there when I had my day job as a software engineer. Pigeon POOlitics is my largest project so far and there is a long way to go in game dev.

What did you two do before becoming game designers?

Sassan: I was working for a business consulting and construction company. I worked on indie games in foreign markets as a hobby.

Hossein: I was a software engineer and tech entrepreneur.

When did you decide to create a game together?

We got connected to each other around September 2019 by one of our friends, and we started thinking about the Pigeon POOlitics game. Sassan had the concept of pooping pigeons in mind. We were both enthusiastic about politics and making an impact there through the game became a central goal in our project. After a few months of brainstorming and back and forth, the general idea of Pigeon POOlitics came to be.

What video game inspired you the most as a designer?

Sassan: There are a lot of them, but I can say Royal Clash. When you play this game, you see how great it is designed and how great they have balanced it.

Do either of you have experience with mentors? If so, do you think other up and coming game developers should rely on them?

Sassan: Yes. I have mentors and I think it can be very helpful. Specially if you find some mentors who are working in the game industry. Mentors can help you to see the big picture and make you aware about some small details that you forgot.

Hossein: Yes, I agree.

Did you have experience designing a mobile game before Pigeon POOlitics?

Sassan: Yes. I have designed two games before, but both of them were for Iranian Game Market.

Hossein: Yes, I have a few small mobile and online games for mobile.

Why did you choose American politics to be the subject of your game?

Sassan: I was born and raised in the country without freedom of speech. Even though I was interested in politics, it could cost a lot (prison and even worse) to criticize and ridicule politicians and the government. When I immigrated to the U.S., I loved the first amendment and thought maybe we can work on some fun and political concepts, in the land of freedom!

Hossein: I’ve always been following politics. Seeing the mess the U.S. politics has become recently (Trump’s presidency) made me want to make something right. I started reading a lot more about U.S. politics and writing small articles. Making a politics themed game was another good way I could stay involved in politics and help the younger generation avoid the news bubbles and getting trapped into tribal sentiments.

Talk us through the technical and creative journey of developing Pigeon Poolitics.

From a technical standpoint, we used many standard state of the art techniques in 2D games:

– sprite animations make it possible to incorporate complex mechanics in a straightforward manner. Our characters have many different reactions when pigeons poop on them. Some run away, some attack back and chase the pigeons, some take cover.

– physics based motions give our birds and characters a good amount of fluidity when moving around and getting hit.

Thanks to the modern game engine we used [Unity], we could use those features with ease and develop for both Android and iOS with the small team we had. Hossein was the solo developer on the project.

For the creative side of designing levels, characters and bosses, we would start with a brainstorming sessions and over the course of a few days narrow our options down to the few characters and politicians we wanted on that level. Sassan would do a lot of research and come up with dialogues and actions for our characters, their outfits and so forth. He also managed distributing the work to our various graphists and voice actors and keeping things on schedule.

Why did you feel a mobile format was the best idea for your game?

Since we have a political theme, we wanted to focus on people that were interested in politics and this election rather than hard core gamers. So we decided our game had to be in the “casual” category. You know, games that people play on the subway and on the potty. Most people have smartphones, which makes it the best way to reach out to many diverse players for our game and stats.

How would you describe your game to someone who’s never heard of it?

For a typical video game you focus on the gameplay and storyline. With Pigeon POOlitics, it’s a bit trickier. Depending on the audience:

Story: Pigeon’s have decided to get involved in the 2020 presidential election, as it can affect their lives as much as people’s lives. But as they are just pigeons and cannot vote, so they decided to poop on the people and politicians in their rival party.

Game play: You control a flock of pigeons and have to poop on people and politicians in the rival political party. They don’t stand by as you poop on them, they fight back, run away, take shelter and curse at you!

Politics: You know how annoying and stressful politics are? In Pigeon POOlitics you can poop on the annoying politicians. It makes you feel relieved!

Walk us through the gameplay of Pigeon POOlitics.

Funny Game Pigeon Characters Play

Pigeon POOlitics is an arcade style game. You play multiple levels that increasingly become harder. Each level is set in an iconic U.S. city and introduces some stereotypical people from that city. The bosses in each level are famous politicians and have unique mechanics. You control a flock of pigeons.

At the start of the level you choose your party by pooping on either Joe Biden or Donald Trump. You continue by pooping on people that are in the opposing party. They change their party when you poop enough on them. At the end of the level you fight a famous politician of your opposing party.

How did you develop the real time polling feature for your app?

Players can choose to share their location with us. If they do, then we count the amount they poop on each party and include that in our national data. Everyone can see the live map in game.

Why was it important to you both to get involved in the 2020 election?

We have never seen such a heated presidential election. We think one of the important reasons that make this election more important is Donald Trump’s character. He doesn’t respect or believe in some of the traditions like releasing his tax returns or conceding to the ultimate winner of the election.

For the first time, the media and politicians are discussing scenarios in which the president wouldn’t leave the White House even after losing the election, would cheat the election and break the system one way or another. Scenarios in which he could undermine democracy. In these dark scenarios, which again haven’t happened or discussed seriously recently, could result in the fall of the United States.

The divide between the people and politicians in the political parties is also at a record high. Never before were the U.S. politicians sticking to their party lines so strongly. People the same, have fallen into their respective “news bubbles” and believe in parallel realities. Some don’t seem to have the knowledge of technology necessary to draw their own conclusions.

On top of all that we have a pandemic on our hands which further complicates the logistics of holding the election.

With everything going on, the mess that the election has become from the people, political parties, USPS, Donald Trump, etc. how can anyone who lives in the U.S. not get involved in the 2020 election?

Did you hit any snags in development? How did you get through them?

Hossein: Way too often! As a developer you need to stay on top of what absolutely needs to be done, what is nice to have and what is a waste of time. You need to know the tradeoffs and make hard decisions on what to implement and when. It is all about managing resources.

How hard was it to get your game on mobile app stores?

They have a review process which is necessary for ensuring the quality of apps in the store. Since the process is manual, it was very slow for our tight timeline. Apparently the pandemic also made the review times worse.

Sometimes it would take ten days to review our new update, just to reject it because there were minor issues with the images or description of the app. We would fix the issue in five minutes, resubmit and wait for a couple more days to see what happens.

Sometimes the reviewers wouldn’t tell us what exactly needed attention. So there would be some back and forth to figure out what needed to be done. Which again slowed down our development process.

How have people reacted to the game so far?

Our fans (mostly politically involved individuals who are open to discussion) have had a blast with the game! The bosses (specially Biden and Trump) have been a hit! They have goofy dialogs that reference the news about them.

Could we see a future edition of Pigeon Poolitics for other countries?

For sure. We think this can be a fun and creative way to make people more interested in politics anywhere in the world. They should have freedom of speech though.

What advice do you have for future app developers?

It is important to publish your game as early as possible and iterate and complete it as you get feedback from your users. If you wait to have all the features to launch, you will be in trouble.

What’s next on the docket for you both?

We aren’t yet finished with Pigeon POOlitics. We may keep adding content to the current game. We are also thinking about more games and probably new versions of the Pigeon POOlitics for other countries.

What would be your dream game to work on?

Hossein: I want to work on an open world AAA game with a storyline. Kind of like GTA, but with futuristic environments and multiplayer.

What’s your favorite video game of all time and why?

Sassan: I love Super Sonic. It is not only because of the game, but also because it reminds me of my childhood. The time that I used to play SEGA genesis with my brothers. I think the experience of playing a game is more important most of the time than what kind of game you are playing!

Hossein:GTA, it was the first open world game I played. One summer I spent hours daily exploring and doing different things. The game made me familiar with many concepts that were foreign to me at the time.

Back to my previous answers, the game was like an interactive movie for me. The memories from the game were so real to me that I had a “deja vu” feeling when I first visited Los Angeles.

What do you hope players take away from Pigeon POOlitics?

We think Pigeon POOlitics can make people laugh, and at the same time educate them about the politics. We have news subtitles in the game which update daily.

We hope players learn that they should not treat any candidate as a holy person, that it is ok to joke about politics and criticize politicians, that you can and should express what you think freely and that both parties have good and bad features.

What’s your five year plan?

We are thinking of making our office bigger and focus more on funny casual games.

This list of fictional birds is subsidiary to the list of fictional animals. It is restricted to notable bird characters from the world of fiction. Ducks, penguins and birds of prey are not included here, and are listed separately at list of fictional ducks, list of fictional penguins, and list of fictional birds of prey.

Literature[edit]

Louis, a trumpeter swan in E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan
Jonathan Livingston Seagull from the novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull
The Dodo in Alice in Wonderland, fantasy novel by Lewis Carroll; in the 1951 film by the same name, the dodo is named Jim and he burns down the White Rabbit's home
Billina, in numerous Land of Oz books by L. Frank Baum
Grip, a raven, companion to the younger Barnaby Rudge in Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens. The character of Grip inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write his most famous poem, 'The Raven'.
Moses the raven represents the Church in George Orwell's Animal Farm
Quoth, a raven in the works of Terry Pratchett (a pun on 'The Raven' by Edgar Allan Poe)
Margalo, a canary from Stuart Little
Captain Flint, Long John Silver's parrot in Treasure Island
Lory, in Alice in Wonderland, fantasy novel by Lewis Carroll
Parrot Polynesia, in Dr. Dolittle stories by Hugh Lofting
The Jubjub Bird from Lewis Carroll's poem 'Jabberwocky'
The Roly-Poly Bird from Roald Dahl's children books The Enormous Crocodile and The Twits
Fawkes in Harry Potter

Comics[edit]

Booker, a yellow chicken in U.S. Acres
Roy, a rooster in U.S. Acres
Sheldon, an unhatched chick egg, in Jim Davis' Garfield and Friends and U.S. Acres comic strips
Matthew, Dream's raven in the DC Comics Sandman series
Shoe, a grumpy, cigar-smoking purple martin from Shoe
Big Eggo, an ostrich in The Beano
Woodstock, a yellow canary in the Charles M. Schulz's Peanutscomic strip

Folklore[edit]

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, a fictional bird of Aesop's fables and other folktales
Mother Goose, a goose in the Mother Goose and Grimm stories
The six brothers turned into birds in German fairytale The Six Swans, collected by the Brothers Grimm
The Swan Maiden, a magical bird who turns into a beautiful woman in several folktales
The eleven siblings cursed by their queenly stepmother in The Wild Swans, a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen
Sukh-Shari, a bird pair from Thakurmar Jhuli that also appear in Rupkatha's Bengali fairy tales
Hugin and Munin, two ravens of Odin in Norse mythology and fictional works based thereon, such as American Gods and Valhalla
The Firebird, a figure in Slavic folklore. The Firebird has been the subject of a number of fairy tales, and notably inspired Igor Stravinsky's 1910 ballet The Firebird.
Henny Penny, more commonly known in the United States as Chicken Little, a chicken who believes the world is coming to an end.

Animation[edit]

Ace, a male yellow parakeet and coprotagonist in Powerbirds
Alcor, Professor Ursula's pet crow familiar in the anime series Little Witch Academia, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker in the English dub.
Aracuan Bird, a pink guinea fowl in various Walt Disney cartoons
Buzby, a yellow bird of unspecified species in advertisements for British Telecom in the late 1970s/early 1980s
Canary, growing small and large in Tex Avery cartoon King-Size Canary
Chanticleer, a rooster from Rock-a-Doodle
Chicken from Cow and Chicken
Chicken Boo, a six-foot-tall chicken in Animaniacs
Clara Cluck, a female dancing hen in various Disney cartoons
Dab in Ice Age
Diablo, Maleficent's raven, in Disney's animated version of Sleeping Beauty
Edie Von Keet, a female parakeet and one of the main characters in Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own
Flit, a hummingbird in Disney's Pocahontas and Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World
Foghorn Leghorn, a chicken in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons
Gandy Goose, a goose in Terrytoons
Gogo Dodo in Tiny Toon Adventures
The Goodfeathers, a trio of pigeons in Animaniacs
Goodnight Kiwi, the title character of Goodnight Kiwi
Gus Goose, a goose in Disney's Donald Duck cartoons
Harvey Beaks from the show of the same name.
Heckle and Jeckle are magpies that appear in Terrytoons cartoons
Homer Pigeon, a pigeon in Walter Lantz
Iago, a parrot in the animated Disney film Aladdin
José Carioca, a parrot in The Three Caballeros
Leafie, the titular character in Leafie, A Hen into the Wild
Little Beeper, Road Runner's student in Tiny Toon Adventures
Lord Shen, an leustic peacock who is the main antagonist in Kung Fu Panda 2
Madame Upanova the Ostrich from the 'Dance of the Hours' segment of Fantasia
Master Crane, a black-necked crane in Kung Fu Panda
Mithu, Meena's pet rose-ringed parakeet in Meena
Mordecai, a blue jay in Regular Show
Mr Ping, a Chinese goose in DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda
Panchito Pistoles, a Mexican rooster in The Three Caballeros
Peep, a chick who is curious in Peep and the Big Wide World
Phobos and Deimos, Rei Hino's pet crows that live at the shrine with her
Pingu, a penguin who appears in Pingu
Polly, a female blue parakeet and coprotagonist in Powerbirds
Princess Odette, a human with a curse that turns her into a swan during the day in The Swan Princess
Raven, an unnamed raven that is the pet and familiar to Grimhilde the evil queen/old witch in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; was later used for the inspiration for Diablo Maleficent's pet raven familiar in the 1959 Disney Animated film Sleeping Beauty
The Road Runner (a roadrunner) in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons
Roya, Princess Samira's pet peacock who appears in the Nick Jr. animated CGI series Shimmer and Shine.
Scuttle, a seagull in Disney's The Little Mermaid
Shirley McLoon, a female loon in Tiny Toon Adventures
Superchicken, a heroic chicken in Jay Ward
Tweety, a canary in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons
Wattoo Wattoo, an oval-shaped black and white bird in Wattoo Wattoo Super Bird
Willy, a sparrow and main character in Willy the Sparrow
Woody Woodpecker, in the Walter Lantz cartoons
Yankee Doodle Pigeon in Hanna-Barbera's Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines
Zazu, a hornbill from The Lion King

Mascots[edit]

Syd 'Swannie' Skilton, swan mascot of the Sydney Swans
Sebastian the Ibis, the mascot of the University of Miami
Olly, a kookaburra who is one of the mascots of the 2000 Summer Olympics
Rowdy the mascot for The University of Texas at San AntonioRoadrunners
Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, mascot for Cocoa Puffs
Cornelius, a rooster who is the mascot for Kellogg's Corn Flakes
BJ Birdie and Ace, mascots for the Toronto Blue Jays
Poe, mascot for the Baltimore Ravens
Big Red, mascot for the Arizona Cardinals
Thrasher, mascot of the Atlanta Thrashers
Seymore D. Fair, the pelican mascot of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition
Toucan Sam, the cartoon spokesbird for Froot Loops cereal (US)
Twitter Bird, the mascot of Twitter
Weatherbird, the mascot of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; identified as a dicky-bird

Puppets[edit]

Camilla, Gonzo's romantic interest on The Muppet Show
Big Bird, a very big canary, and Little Bird on Sesame Street
Burdette in It's a Big Big World
Pino, the blue nephew of Big Bird, in Sesamstraat, the Dutch spin-off of Sesame Street
Abelardo Montoya, a very big parrot, Big Bird's Mexican cousin on Plaza Sesamo
Meneer de Uil, the narrating protagonist in the Dutch children's series De Fabeltjeskrant
Emu on CITV
Ossie Ostrich, a character in the Tarax Show and Hey Hey It's Saturday

Video games[edit]

The goose protagonist from 2019 video game Untitled Goose Game
Kazooie, the sidekick in the Banjo-Kazooie series
Falco Lombardi, character from the Star Fox series
Aya Shameimaru, a crow from the Touhou Project series, playable in several of the games
The eponymous protagonists from Angry Birds
Ivy, a kiwi in Ivy the Kiwi?
Beat, a robotic bird in Mega Man

Fictional bird species[edit]

Mockingjay bird, central bird that is part of the Hunger Games trilogy
Jayhawk, part 'jay' and part 'hawk' this bird is the mascot of the Kansas Jayhawks sports teams and has roots in Kansas lore
Porgs, a species of penguin or puffin-like birds that live on Ach-To in Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Chocobo, a bird in the Final Fantasy series

Other[edit]

Pigeon Games Free

The Radioactive Chicken Heads, a costumed comedy punk rock band mostly made up of mutant chicken characters with backstories developed through the band's music, videos, short films and video game, Badd Bunny Breakout.
Birdie the Early Bird from the McDonald's commercials