Save Them Goldfish!

Your college roommate is out of money and out of food — and he is trying to fry your beloved goldfish for dinner! It’s up to you to save them from a fiery demise!

Gameplay Video

This game is based on a TV commercial for that aired in 1999. The commercial depicts a poor college student rummaging through his empty kitchen for food. Desperate and hungry, the young man turns and eyes a helpless pet goldfish swimming in a glass bowl. A few seconds later the poor fish is seen sizzling over a hot skillet.

The game assumes that you are the roommate of this hungry college student. You return home to find him trying to turn your goldfish into a light snack and it’s up to you to save them!

When your roommate tosses a goldfish on the skillet, you need to quickly pick it up and safely drop it back in the fishbowl. The longer the fish has spent flipping in the frying pan, the hotter he becomes. Hot fish can’t be held very long or they will burn your hand causing you to drop them on the countertop. Let a fish fry for too long and expires in a puff of smoke.

The pace of game play quickens as you save more and more of your little pals. Soon your roommate starts grabbing handfuls of fish at a time.

After launch the game, eCampus created Save Them Goldfish! t-shirts and frisbees which were given away as promotional goodies.


Are you ready to Axercise? A homicidal axe-wielding maniac smashes down your dorm room door. The elevators are broken and you are a long way from the stairs. Guess you’ll have to run!

Intro & StoryGameplayCutscenes

This quirky Shockwave game resided in the Phun-Lab. It plays a lot like a classic “track and field” game except here your life is at stake!

The game story was intended to be a continuation of an TV spot that unfortunately never aired. In the commercial, a college student is ordering his textbooks online from the web site when an axe-wielding maniac begins to chop his way through his dorm room door. The punch line: is so fast and easy to use that there was plenty of time for the student to complete his order and hide before the axe murderer entered the room.

The game picks up where the commercial left off. The student, named Bud in the game, now has to escape from the axe murderer, named Clyde. Bud lives on the top floor of his dorm building and the elevator is under repair. To flee the building, he has to run across each floor to get to the stairwell on the opposite side.

To move Bud, the player must repeatedly hit the ‘left foot’ and ‘right foot’ keys in an alternating pattern. The faster the buttons are hit, the faster Bud will run. Many obstacles lie in the way of a quick escape, so Bud must also jump, duck, or dive and roll to avoid collisions.

The game features three dorm buildings with 30 total floors. Every few floors, the player is rewarded with one of nine humorous animated cut-scenes ala Pac-Man.

Axercise! Level Editor

Waste a few minutes tinkering with the level editor used in the production of the Axercise game. Design your own dorm room floors with this powerful and intuitive utility.

I created this level editor to streamline the production and testing of Axercise “floors”. A lot of effort was spent making the interface simple and intuitive in case it was ever released for public download. Tiles and objects can be easily dragged-and-dropped on to the world view, making level design easy.

Harvey Birdman: Stop That Sandwich!

Uh-oh! There’s only one egg salad sandwich left.. and everyone wants it! Play as one of five characters from the Harvey Birdman show, grab the sandwich, and RUN!

Based on the AdultSwim cartoon Harvey Birdman, Stop That Sandwich! is a frantic game of ‘keep-away’ in an environment where everything is breakable.

The gist of the game is:

1. Locate the sandwich.
2. Procure the sandwich.
3. Abscond with the sandwich.
4. Destroy anything that dares get in your way.

Six characters from the show are playable — Harvey Birdman, Reducto, Phil Ken Sebben, Peter Potamus, Avenger, and Bear. Each character features a standard melee attack and a unique special attack. Using a special attack consumes a ‘star’ — and your supply of stars is limited — so they must be used strategically. Stars can be picked up in various places around the map, but the best place to gain a star is by breaking things. Smashing objects awards major points and often causes a star to spawn.

There are three unique areas to explore. The game also features optional mission objectives for extra points. One objective might be to destroy all objects in the map that have anything to do with water. Some objectives require that you spare certain objects. Many of the objectives are cryptic in nature; you have to figure out the meaning on your own.

Like the Harvey Birdman show, the game has a random smattering of Hannah Barbara characters. Feel free to smash them as you see fit.