"Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."
"Buster, it may come as a complete surprise to you that this is a handheld video game."
— Daffy
Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck is a 2007 Minigame Game for the Nintendo DS. This game is based on the famous Chuck Jones cartoon short of the same name.
Just like the animated short its based on, in this game Daffy Duck runs afoul of a tormenting game designer as it annoys and irritates him. The "goal" of the game is to beat Daffy in different minigames and scenarios, thus irritating him further.
The game features a lot of clever references to not only classic Looney Tunes shorts, but video games in general.
Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck contains examples of the following tropes:
- 100% Completion: At certain points, a sparkle will appear, and tapping on it unlocks a token featuring another Looney Tunes character. Collect them all to get a secret ending where Daffy gets so angry at your torment that he is Driven to Suicide. No, we’re not kidding.
- Affectionate Parody:
- "Use Your Noodle Soup" is portrayed as one to the Brain Age franchise, stemming from Daffy's suggestion for a "mind improvement game", but in practice it's a bigger one for Cooking Mama, since you're chopping up ingredients to boil in a pot... along with Daffy.
- "Diamond Mine, Mine!" is one to Adventure, given that game was (in)famous for having duck dragons.
- Bowdlerise: The card players from the "Deal the Cards" aren't smoking cigars.
- The Cameo: Bugs appears in the "Duck Soup" minigame, Marvin appears in Marvin's Revenge and Duck Dodgers and Gossamer and Playboy Penguin show up in "Closing the DS".
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The paint cans that Daffy brings out after irritating him enough correspond to a minigame depending on if Daffy or the background is painted. Blue unlocks Duck Dodgers or Exploding Piano, Yellow unlocks Robin Hood Daffy or Circus Cannon, Red unlocks Drip-Along Daffy or the stage show mini-game.
- Call-Back: Quite a few references to Daffy's classic shorts.
- The minigame "Deal The Cards" is a call back to Drip A Long Daffy. Each time you succeed, Daffy gets shot up with bullets.
- Robin Hood Daffy gets a shout out in the second minigame. Daffy shoots himself with a bow and has to dodge obstacles to reach the Sheriff.
- Guide Dang It!: To play the "Closing the DS" game, the player has to close the DS and if the battery light remains solid, opening the system will trigger the game.
- Human Cannonball: "Load the Cannon", except you're not aiming Daffy at the target, but at the giant barrel of TNT in the arena.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: When the game glitches and a picture of Bugs Bunny suddenly pops up, Daffy exclaims the game is full of "bugs".Daffy: See? I told you they need my brain! This game is full of Bugs! Pardon the expression.
- Internet Jerk: "Chat Spat" tasks you with becoming one, spamming insults in a DS chatroom with Daffy to force him to the top of the screen and bonk his head.
- Minigame Game: What the entire game boils down to, with many stylus-based minigames. Even closing the DS triggers a minigame.
- Non Sequitur, *Thud*: In "Exploding Piano" after clearing a level, Daffy will say something random after getting blown up by the titular piano such as "And I say he does have to shoot me now!" (which he also says after clearing the mini-game), "There are four lights!" or "Goombas ate my lunch, my dear plumber!" followed by fainting.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: Duck Dodgers' blaster is one of the slowest energy balls in fiction, giving the player plenty of time to adjust the teleportation machine on the bottom screen. Marvin rightfully seems utterly unconcerned about it.
- Postmodernism: Just like its origin animation, the game explores the relationship between Daffy and the world outside the cartoon, with the caveat that the player is actively deciding what to subject him to.
- The Reveal: The big twist at the end of the game reveals that Daffy's tormentor is himself.Daffy: If you can't beat 'em, beat 'em.
- Rewarding Inactivity: About half of the minigames are triggered by actively messing with Daffy, the background around him, or the DS itself; the other half consist of just patiently hanging out on said screen until the game throws you a scenario.
- Save the Villain: In Duck Dodgers, the player must do this by tapping a series of arrows so they lead to Duck Dodger's teleporter lever and then turn the wheel to get the electricity to the lever and then pull it to teleport Dodgers in front of his disintegrator shot.
- Video Game 3D Leap: Parodied in "Marvin's Revenge", which begins with Daffy thinking of himself as being a 3D polygonal "Next-Gen" character, he steps into a machine, turning him in a very low polygon version of himself.Daffy: THIS is Next-Gen? I said "Next-Gen" you slob! Next Gen!
- Shout-Out:
- In "Exploding Piano", after clearing Level Four, Daffy says "There are four lights!" and after clearing Level Five in Free Play Mode, says "Goombas ate my lunch, my dear plumber!"
- After getting annoyed with his clone from the second screen, Daffy Shoryukens him out of existence.
- In the opening movie, the animator produces a futuristic platformer for scenery, so Daffy runs off-camera and comes back in Mega Man-style gear and an Arm Cannon.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The entire game as the goal is to torment Daffy until a thermometer on the right side fills up completely.
- The Voiceless: Bugs, Gossamer and Playboy Penguin don't talk. Marvin lets out one word in the Duck Dodgers game but doesn't talk in the Marvin's Revenge game.
