Desperate To Play LittleBigPlanet? Crayon Physics May Help Tide You Over
by Dan Landis on January 10, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Petri Purho, the creative genius behind Kloonigames, has created a unique puzzle game that just looks like a bunch of crayon scribbles. Looks can be deceiving.
His game, Crayon Physics, actually has you drawing objects with your mouse, which are then physically applied to the game world. The goal is to pick up stars with a little red ball.
It’s fairly simple and only required about 10 minutes for me to beat the seven levels packed in the game (including the tutorial). I must also mention that the music track playing in the background is incredible.
Petri is currently working on an expanded version, dubbed Crayon Physics Deluxe, that would allow much more complex shapes and objects to be recognized. He demonstrates putting objects on wheels and watching them roll around, as well as spinning shapes on a fulcrum, in this video:
Crayon Physics Deluxe was recently selected as one of the twelve finalists in the 2008 Independent Games Festival Student Showcase, as well as for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. All of the finalists are scheduled to be shown at the Game Developer’s Conference in February.
Crayon Physics Deluxe in on track to be finished by the end of the month. In the meantime, you can download the original Crayon Physics for free by clicking here. You can also check out the other games on Petri’s site, all of which are pretty impressive given they are mostly all developed in less than a week. Petri claims to have developed Crayon Physics in only five days.
It certainly makes me feel like a moron considering it took me almost 2 hours just to write this little piece. He’s damaging my self-esteem with his superior awesomeness.
Petri also mentions something on his site that I’d like to bring up.
“Most of the [time] I just end up wasting the development time in the parts of the game where it matters the least: graphics [instead of staying] focused on the stuff that matters: gameplay.”
This is a statement that I think rings very true with Petri’s games. All of them are a blast to play even though they aren’t much to look at. Gamers today seem mesmerized by fancy graphics and forget about what matters most: how fun it is to play. I think that’s a mindset we need to get back to.
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on January 11, 2008 11:36 am
This game is outsanding, thanks for making it a bit more aware :D
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on January 11, 2008 4:34 pm
Yes, it really is a neat little game, made even more impressive by the fact that it’s a mere 6MB file that downloads and installs in, like, 15 seconds. Crayon Physics Deluxe would make an excellent XBLA/PSN game, and then maybe Petri could make some money off of his brilliance. Of course, I’d always accept the game as a free download, smiley face (sorry, I don’t do emotes).
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on January 11, 2008 4:37 pm
I’ve heard of this and couldn’t be bothered to actually play it. Looks amazing, I’m definitely gonna give this a shot as soon as I hit Outland. Damn Warcraft.
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