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Physics Drawing Games

By bioephemera on February 5, 2009.

I have two physics-based games to plug: Crayon Physics and Fantastic Contraption.

Crayon Physics is, well, just watch the demo:

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.

Cool, huh? The promo trailer reminds me of Line Rider (an online/iPhone doodling game) crossed with Fantastic Contraption (an online physics puzzle game, soon to be on the iPhone as well).

I once spent an afternoon trying to figure out Fantastic Contraption, but it confused the heck out of me. Still, it's free, addictive, and makes people stop and say "what are you doing?" Line Rider is more my speed, and since I can play it on the subway, I don't feel guilty for wasting an hour trying to figure out how to make a stick figure boy on a sled do a loop-de-loop. (It's like I'm studying physics, right?)

Tags
education
Frivolity
Web 2.0, New Media, and Gadgets

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I really love the crayon physics thing! Will have to devote some time to it. Some reservations - e.g. don't like waiting for it to finish ... very slowly ... drawing the levels.

I've not yet figured out the consistency of its laws. For example if you draw a chain of loops, sometimes they stay attached but other times they become independent objects that fall through each other. I'm hoping there are some simple underlying principles that render such things consistent and can be figured out experimentally, but I've only just started playing.

For fun I made a chain of loops with the first loop attached to the Sun, and on the other end of the chain I got a lovely little pendulum going back and forth indefinitely.

Reminds me of "The Incredible Machine" (TIM) from the early 90s

What about Magic Pen? I think it's considerably more entertaining than Crayon Physics; definitely worth checking out.

Scratch that; I only played the demo of Crayon Physics, whose physics was considerably worse than the deluxe version (when I played it).

I have a lot to say further to my previous comment (some good, some bad) and I think I'll write a brief review of Crayon Physics on my own blog sometime.

But I'll say this much in advance - I had a go at designing a level of my own, and here it is for anyone who's bought the game and is interested in levels designed by Bioephemera readers.