5 ms·

An Ingenious Video Game That Looks Like It Was Designed by a Third-Grader

78 points by gensym 19y ago

rms 19y ago
I played the beta a while ago on my tablet PC; it was clever, a good concept, but kind of buggy and not that fun. Maybe it's gotten better since then.
thorax 19y ago
I'm a huge fan of this sort of game. If interested, you should also check out Phun: http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki Not crayony or goal-oriented, but a lot of the same physics sandbox concepts. Oh, and you can download it right now.
- r7000 19y ago
  To see Phun in action, do a search on youtube. The (mostly) Japanese rocket makers are especially fun to watch.
mynameishere 19y ago
Nice and moody. The problem with gameplay seems to be: You have to move your circle around my drawing boxes half-way on top of it, thus launching it. Not too clever.
brent 19y ago
It looks like a crayon version of working model 2d from a decade ago.
- mhb 19y ago
  But will probably cost a few thousand dollars less. http://workingmodel.design-simulation.com/WM2D/index.php http://workingmodel.design-simulation.com/WM2D/index.php
moog 19y ago
There's also a version for the jail broken iPhone. There's a nice level where the objects on the screen will slip and slide around as you twist and turn the iPhone.
dustineichler 19y ago
I loved it personally. Inspired actually. Submit more links like this.
- thorax 19y ago
  I submitted it a while back, but it didn't get as good reception. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122548 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122548 I think adjectives are necessary in the title to convey how cool it is, maybe.
  - pchristensen 19y ago
    Plus the Slate article explained it well.
huhtenberg 19y ago
This game looks simple on the surface, but it must have some interesting physics code inside. This reminds me of a tool that was developed by ParaGraph back in 90s (the same company that developed handwriting recognition for Apple's Newton). Their app allowed creating TrueType characters by drawing a simple raster image. This is stunningly impressive if you consider that TrueType is essentially defined by geometric splines. Converting raster image into a set of curves is an extremely unobvious thing to do, but on the surface the whole thing looked quite ordinary and trivial. Same thing with Crayon Physics - trivial on the surface, but complex on the inside. And this is what's impressive about it.
- barrettcolin 19y ago
  > it must have some interesting physics code inside. You can check it out for yourself: http://box2d.org http://box2d.org. You can also download several of the Game Developers Conference presentations given by the original author here: http://www.gphysics.com/downloads http://www.gphysics.com/downloads An enterprising chap has also ported the original C++ code to Flash: http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net
mosburger 19y ago
This game kinda reminds me of Sierra's "The Incredible Machine" back in the 90's, where you created a ridiculous Rube Goldberg thing to solve a puzzle. I spent hours on that game. This is like that, except it has realistic-looking physics, and you can create all the parts of the machine by drawing them. It looks cool!
juanpablo 19y ago
I've played it on the iphone and it's unexpectedly addictive.
tonyvt2005 19y ago
Very cool. Reminds me of the LineRider game.
jcromartie 19y ago
I applaud the author's innovation, but I have to take issue with the recent trend of physics-engine-as-gameplay. I'm not sure if I'm too cynical (I can enjoy this game for a while) but I just don't find them fun in general. Phun (no pun intended) isn't really a "game" to me, it's more of a software toy. I think it might be because realistic rigid-body physics are still fairly novel in games, and seeing realistic reactions in-game is inherently satisfying for some reason. I think we'll see a continuing rise in the number of "physics-based ______" formula games, followed by a sharp decline.
gibsonf1 19y ago
It looks very similar to the MIT whiteboard physics sketching app. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZNTgglPbUA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZNTgglPbUA
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
youngnh 19y ago
"Gears of War II will take several years, hundreds of people, and tens of millions of dollars to create." I read that it was actually 10 programmers working on the Unreal engine and tools and 20 artists doing something with their efforts for 2 years. They did have a $10 million budget, though.

78 points by gensym 19y ago

rms 19y ago

I played the beta a while ago on my tablet PC; it was clever, a good concept, but kind of buggy and not that fun. Maybe it's gotten better since then.

thorax 19y ago

I'm a huge fan of this sort of game. If interested, you should also check out Phun: http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki Not crayony or goal-oriented, but a lot of the same physics sandbox concepts. Oh, and you can download it right now.

r7000 19y ago
To see Phun in action, do a search on youtube. The (mostly) Japanese rocket makers are especially fun to watch.

mynameishere 19y ago

Nice and moody. The problem with gameplay seems to be: You have to move your circle around my drawing boxes half-way on top of it, thus launching it. Not too clever.

brent 19y ago

It looks like a crayon version of working model 2d from a decade ago.

mhb 19y ago
But will probably cost a few thousand dollars less. http://workingmodel.design-simulation.com/WM2D/index.php http://workingmodel.design-simulation.com/WM2D/index.php

moog 19y ago

There's also a version for the jail broken iPhone. There's a nice level where the objects on the screen will slip and slide around as you twist and turn the iPhone.

dustineichler 19y ago

I loved it personally. Inspired actually. Submit more links like this.

thorax 19y ago
I submitted it a while back, but it didn't get as good reception. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122548 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122548 I think adjectives are necessary in the title to convey how cool it is, maybe.
- pchristensen 19y ago
  Plus the Slate article explained it well.

huhtenberg 19y ago

This game looks simple on the surface, but it must have some interesting physics code inside. This reminds me of a tool that was developed by ParaGraph back in 90s (the same company that developed handwriting recognition for Apple's Newton). Their app allowed creating TrueType characters by drawing a simple raster image. This is stunningly impressive if you consider that TrueType is essentially defined by geometric splines. Converting raster image into a set of curves is an extremely unobvious thing to do, but on the surface the whole thing looked quite ordinary and trivial. Same thing with Crayon Physics - trivial on the surface, but complex on the inside. And this is what's impressive about it.

barrettcolin 19y ago
> it must have some interesting physics code inside. You can check it out for yourself: http://box2d.org http://box2d.org. You can also download several of the Game Developers Conference presentations given by the original author here: http://www.gphysics.com/downloads http://www.gphysics.com/downloads An enterprising chap has also ported the original C++ code to Flash: http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net http://box2dflash.sourceforge.net

mosburger 19y ago

This game kinda reminds me of Sierra's "The Incredible Machine" back in the 90's, where you created a ridiculous Rube Goldberg thing to solve a puzzle. I spent hours on that game. This is like that, except it has realistic-looking physics, and you can create all the parts of the machine by drawing them. It looks cool!

juanpablo 19y ago

I've played it on the iphone and it's unexpectedly addictive.

tonyvt2005 19y ago

Very cool. Reminds me of the LineRider game.

jcromartie 19y ago

I applaud the author's innovation, but I have to take issue with the recent trend of physics-engine-as-gameplay. I'm not sure if I'm too cynical (I can enjoy this game for a while) but I just don't find them fun in general. Phun (no pun intended) isn't really a "game" to me, it's more of a software toy. I think it might be because realistic rigid-body physics are still fairly novel in games, and seeing realistic reactions in-game is inherently satisfying for some reason. I think we'll see a continuing rise in the number of "physics-based ______" formula games, followed by a sharp decline.

gibsonf1 19y ago

It looks very similar to the MIT whiteboard physics sketching app. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZNTgglPbUA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZNTgglPbUA

deleted 19y ago
[deleted]

youngnh 19y ago

"Gears of War II will take several years, hundreds of people, and tens of millions of dollars to create." I read that it was actually 10 programmers working on the Unreal engine and tools and 20 artists doing something with their efforts for 2 years. They did have a $10 million budget, though.