Physics Games and Physics-Based Game Downloads

A friend over at inXile pointed out that they’ve officially announced they’ve acquired the rights to bring Line Rider, the physics-based Flash sensation, to Wii and DS in spring 2007:

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Dec. 20, 2006 — Having already amassed a worldwide cult following on the internet, inXile entertainment announced today that it has acquired the rights to the hugely addictive ‘toy’ Line Riderâ„¢ and that the popular game will soon be available for both the Nintendo DSâ„¢ and Nintendo Wii.

This is huge. It’s a perfect example of compelling content taking on a life of its own. The press release has a great quote by the Slovenian creator, Bostjan Cadez: “Line Rider began its life as a project I did for illustration class…” Now here it is positioned to be the next big thing on DS. Congrats, Bostjan!

Thanks to the incessant prodding of my brother, I implemented a WordPress ratings plugin. I hacked it into place to support arbitrary post IDs, too, and went through the pains of updating the master physics games list so you can rate games there as well (that’s a static page still, which is both ugly and sad).

After the rating DB has some time to populate, I’ll add a sidebar widget to list off the most popular games and whatnot. So get rating!

This year’s Game Developer’s Conference will be hosting the first-ever Independent Games Summit, which is loosely co-branded with the Independent Games Festival. The IGS will be two days of lectures, panels, and discussions of indie game development topics (March 5th and 6th). I had a hand in planning it, so I may be a bit biased, but I think it’ll be a very productive two days for indies.

I’ll be giving a talk on physics games on the second day:

Physics Games Go Indie (Matthew Wegner, Flashbang Studios)
Tuesday – 4.15pm – 5.00pm
Wegner, who is both an indie developer and runs the physics game blog Fun-Motion, explains why real-time physics are such a big part of many innovative independent games, with demonstrations and practical tips for developers wanting to use physics to make their games stand out.

So if you’re already planning on attending all five days of the GDC, be sure to check it out. If you aren’t planning on going, you should seriously consider it. CMP is making two IGS-specific passes available at some very reasonable prices: the IGS Expo Pass and the IGS Classic Pass. Hope to see you there!