Video: “Crayon Physics Deluxe”
posted at 8:53 am on November 15, 2007 by Allahpundit
A bit of Zen to start the day. Not as indelibly awesome, perhaps, as “Animator vs. Animation” or its apocalyptic sequel, but this one has the advantage of being a real game. An impressive one, too, to my eyes, insofar as it not only recreates the laws of physics but applies them instantly to irregular shapes. You tell me, techies: Hot or not?
Blowback
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That’s neat. No techie here, but that looks in principle very similar to the old game “Incredible Machine,” except you draw on this one.
JamesLee on November 15, 2007 at 9:07 AM
Awesomely awesome
Asher on November 15, 2007 at 9:09 AM
Sizzle, baby. Definite sizzle.
yo on November 15, 2007 at 9:11 AM
Pass, if I want to watch cool examples of Newtonian Mechanics I’d rather watch hippies falling out of a tree.
kiakjones on November 15, 2007 at 9:11 AM
Agreed, very cool.
amerpundit on November 15, 2007 at 9:12 AM
Way cool. Even better if you can adjust the “gravity” to simulate what would happen on other planets or the Moon.
Ordinary1 on November 15, 2007 at 9:15 AM
Well it violates physics by having objects instantly disappear.
And some of the challenges seem fairly rigid (and thus easily modeled in a game) in the methods you can employ to touch the star (the last one in particular).
Neo on November 15, 2007 at 9:18 AM
Very useful after that second bong.
Hopefully it’s for Mac’s only with a fifteen gig proprietary bubble-memory upgrade.
Hening on November 15, 2007 at 9:19 AM
MKH hot.
saint kansas on November 15, 2007 at 9:19 AM
I think it is cool.
But, and maybe I’m being picky here, and of course I’m no physicist, but – what law of physics allows you to double tap an object and make it disappear? Cause, that would be useful in certain real life circumstances.
nailinmyeye on November 15, 2007 at 9:23 AM
reminds me a bit of linerider.
Quisp on November 15, 2007 at 9:29 AM
It’s hard to tell from the video, and the author’s blogsite doesn’t go into internals, but it does not appear to correspond to a universe ruled by the inverse square law for macro objects. When things fall, they accelerate. F=ma is the basic equation, where “a” is the acceleration caused by gravity. This acceleration can be derived from direct measurement or by Newton’s law of gravity, where F = G × (mass #1) × (mass #2) / (distance between them)2. In an atmosphere, acceleration becomes matched by the force of friction with the atmosphere resulting in a “terminal velocity.” In our world, this terminal velocity is measured in hundreds of miles per hour for most objects. I don’t thing the game takes this into account.
Just my observations
georgej on November 15, 2007 at 9:32 AM
Great. I want mine now. Technology evolves in some very strange ways
Why did this not come before the violent games the kids play today? We could have a generation of thinkers not blinkers with carpel thumb.
I hope it is not too late to get something like this into school curriculum-unless those that create the curriculum are lacking in creativity or want to play the existing games on school time so they can beat their children at home.
MSGTAS on November 15, 2007 at 9:37 AM
pretty cool. different.
ThackerAgency on November 15, 2007 at 9:37 AM
Thats cool,no messy crayon’s,since it eliminates
crayon’s this would be a step up for Rosie.hehe.
canopfor on November 15, 2007 at 9:38 AM
Definitely hot. I highly recomend that you do not download the demo if you work from home.
12thman on November 15, 2007 at 9:41 AM
I noticed that also as well as at one point a long lever didn’t quite act correctly. It had two thirds of it hanging out in the air and it didn’t pivot where it should have but in fact just sat there even when a weight was placed on the free end.
Not quite real life physics but cool none the less.
jmarcure on November 15, 2007 at 9:41 AM
Rube Goldberg would have loved this!
JetBoy on November 15, 2007 at 9:45 AM
This year’s cool toy. It will be eclipsed this time next year though.
But, what is persistently cool are the vector analysis, FLOPS, processor contortions thinga-ma-gigs required to handle the almost limitless variations for controlled behavior of apparent randomness.
Or not.
locomotivebreath1901 on November 15, 2007 at 9:48 AM
This is brilliant. It could be the next Lemmings.
dave_lantos on November 15, 2007 at 10:01 AM
I don’t know about anyone else but a double tap and ‘pfffft’ they are gone would be a handy thing to use on my favorite couple – Bill and Hillary.
OBX Pete on November 15, 2007 at 10:21 AM
Too cool.
This would certainly make Tetris a little more interesting!
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on November 15, 2007 at 10:25 AM
Well a double tap can be the first step in making somebody disappear.
F15Mech on November 15, 2007 at 10:39 AM
not really all that complicated. Isaac Newton set up the rules quite awhile ago. Cool nonetheless.
Need a version based on relativity. Now that’d be cool1
jdpaz on November 15, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Aaargh…all the anticipation and then I find that it’s a ‘doze monkey game
dix point for game coolness
minus one million points for platform lameness
Ochlan on November 15, 2007 at 11:13 AM
Great!!! Now I know what to do with all the spare time I have left after playing FreeCell!
landlines on November 15, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Way too simple. Makes Asteroids look complex.
Snidely Whiplash on November 15, 2007 at 12:18 PM
Donno about the game, if that is a game, but the music was great!
Kini on November 15, 2007 at 12:26 PM
It just seems to have a rudimentary physics engine. Not very complex and would upset any Physics teacher in application, but it’s just a puzzle game. I would like to see a more complex game of this because the equations put into the engine could be used in vastly more complex games like Doom, Halo, Call of Duty, etc etc…
Weebork on November 15, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Thankfully, with the integration of multiple cores in computers, will be the integration of better physics in games. Hell, one of the cores could be dedicated just to the physics engine. Games would be much more fun when this happens.
Weebork on November 15, 2007 at 12:51 PM
Actually, I think we might see more general purpose vector processing units in the future… right now, we have already have physics cards and graphics cards, and we have people doing physics calculations on the graphics cards. I’d like to see something that is a bit more open to arbitrary uses.
DaveS on November 15, 2007 at 1:02 PM
Africa hot.
Splashman on November 15, 2007 at 1:05 PM
Definitely hot. Looks like a game based on this engine.
Mark Jaquith on November 15, 2007 at 1:49 PM
DaveS,
I agree that graphics cards have come a long way, but everything still goes through the CPU and that includes physics. The physics the programmers integrate into the engine are still very basic and are not even complete. There is still no concept of inertia, density, momentum built into the physics aspect of the engine because they take up too much processor usage.
Regardless, even with the “physics card” that is out there to supplement both the CPU and the GPU, every bit of the game engine must go through the CPU. Multiple CPUs allow the components of the engine to split up, allowing more processing power to go to those engine components, rather than having to allocate a certain amount of CPU to each aspect.
I agree as well that vectors will be more prominent in the future, but that’s just another aspect of physics that will get integrated into engines as computers come out with increasing number of processors. (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn of separated RAM slots that are reserved for particular sets of CPUs.)
The bottom line for us geeks: Better, more realistic, therefore more fun, games!
Weebork on November 15, 2007 at 3:20 PM
DaveS,
Sorry, I misread what you said about vectors. You said vector processing units. I agree.
Integrating more physics will make games so much more interesting. (Like eliminating the magical ability of players in FPS games to spin around and change directions after they’ve jumped and are in flight!)
Heh.
Weebork on November 15, 2007 at 3:26 PM