Physics Games and Physics-Based Game Downloads

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Rolling Assault represents the evolution of a simple physics prototype I created a few years ago. This prototype had some merit so an artistic friend, Creath Carter, took it upon himself to create some content to the replace the lifeless polygons. We fleshed out the game a bit more in order to enter it into the IGF that year. This is the result:

Humble Beginnings

Over the summer of 2003 I spent a lot of time creating physics-based gameplay experiments. I used Virtools, our middleware of choice, and even posted all of the source code for the benefit of the Virtools developer community. The now-hibernating site was called DevLab–it’s still online, although it hasn’t been updated in awhile.

Anyway, one of the tests I created attempted to simulate the motion of a tank tread. Here is the resulting prototype, which took a few hours to create:

(Rolling Assault Physics Prototype 1)

The game is playable through the Virtools’ plug-in. Use the left and right arrows for control.

This was generally the scope of the prototypes I was creating at the time. The controls are there, along a first pass at balancing the motion so it “feels” pretty good. A goal structure is clearly absent, though, along with such pleasantries as a reset key (right-click and do reset through the Virtools web player if you need to).

Life’s First Creath

As bare as it was, the treads test was fun to screw around with. Creath Carter, a friend from my school days, thought the mechanic had enough potential to bestow upon it some sexy artwork. I had worked with Creath in the past and he knew his way around Virtools. It was a welcome turn of events and saved the project from being completed shelved along with the rest of the physics game experiments.

A mere six days after this first prototype, this version was posted to DevLab:

(Rolling Assault Physics Prototype 2)

Here is the playable Virtools link. Use A/D for left/right controls and mouse movement/click for turret control.

In addition to the new artwork, this version took a second pass at tuning the physics. The addition of the turret also added the ability for the player to right themselves when they get flipped over. On the whole, this new version seemed like a lot of fun to play. Even though there were no enemies to blast, yet, it was easy to imagine what it would be like to play an actual game from this point.

The IGF Version

In August–a month after the first version was created–we decided to put together a playable level of the game and submit it to the Independent Games Festival. The game wasn’t selected as a finalist, but the IGF did serve as a very useful deadline. The contest rules require that your game be roughly in “beta” form with one playable level of content. I had about 5 days that I could spend on the game, in between other projects, but it felt like a feasible goal. I had a lot of energy back then.

We came awfully close to achieving our goal. The final version of the prototype has four enemies, a longer level, music, some sound effects, and slightly-refined controls. There were a few pieces of content that didn’t make it in, unfortunately, including a sweet multi-stage end boss.

(Rolling Assault Game Screenshots)

It’s Judgment Play

One the big issues with physics-based game design is the issue of inertia. Naturally, any Newtonian physics engine that mimics reality will have such things as inertia, the conservation of angular momentum, and so on. But are those things necessarily conducive to a fun, responsive play experience? Not really. More often than not the limitations of reality actually get in the way.

Rolling Assault suffers in this regard. The control seemed fine in the early prototypes. It was satisfying to roll around; the wheels’ motion was aesthetically pleasing. However, as soon as we introduced very specific movement goals–dodge this missile, jump over this barrier–the sluggishness in the tank’s motion becomes apparent. The tank simply isn’t nimble enough to perform directed tasks without some degree of player frustration.

Solutions to Sluggishness

There are two obvious solutions to this problem. One is simply to remove high-fidelity movement requirements from the game’s design. This could be accomplished by putting more emphasis on accurate aiming and the game’s overall weaponry. The tank’s motion would change from a focal point to an abstracted means of scrolling the level forward. The player’s attention would instead be drawn to predictive aiming and observing enemy movement rather than the exact position of the tank. This would require completely rethinking enemy design.

Another solution is to tune the tank’s physics setup to be more responsive. One way to accomplish this is to exaggerate directional changes. For instance, if the tank is moving right and the player wants to go left, the game would provide additional impulses to overcome inertia. As soon as the tank is moving left properly, though, it would scale back the leftward impulses. This sort of anti-inertia logic is actually present in Amoeball and did help make the game feel more responsive. The complexity of the tank would require some additional tweaking–do you boost the torque of the wheels (which are already pretty slippery to begin with, since they are perfect spheres with infinitesimally small contact points)? Or do you fake it with impulses? Add torque on the main body so the player can arbitrarily control rotation mid-air? It would be an interesting design exercise, to say the least.

Play It! It’s Free!

All told, I’m pleased with how Rolling Assault came out. The game is well under a man-month of combined effort, and reasonably entertaining for how little time has been invested in it.

The one-level prototype of Rolling Assault is available exclusively at Fun-Motion. It’s a wee download, weighing in at 5 MB, and completely free. If you’ve read this far definitely check the game out. My rambling words can only do so much good without hands-on experience.

Download Rolling Assault physics game here (5 MB).
(there is no quit key, just alt-F4 when you’re done playing)

(Rate this game! 104 votes, average: 3.53 out of 5)

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Bounce Symphony (aka Bounce aka Color Harmony) by Sprout Games was one of the first physics games aimed at the casual market. The game was released over the summer of 2003, back when Bookworm was a recent title and John Romero was trying his hand at making casual games with Congo Cube. Good times. The gameplay in Bounce Symphony is simple enough: click and drag colored balls to create horizontal lines of five or more.

Playing the Game

The limiting factor to enjoying Bounce Symphony is the inherent frustration in physically accomplishing your objective. In particular, trying to accomplish that goal with the mouse. It can be annoying to grab a tiny physics ball with the cursor. I use a mouse for hours a day, every day, and I still find it particularly irritating at times. The game would translate much more smoothly to something like the Nintendo DS or a PocketPC platform where you could interact with a stylus or, ideally, a multi-touch system like this bad boy. Grabbing and throwing things at a frantic pace with a mouse is simply too demanding, especially for a casual user.

Variations on a Theme

Thankfully, you can choose to play the game without time pressure. There are three modes presented: Relax, Sprint, and Think. Sprint and Relax are the same game mode but with without time pressure. Everyone except the most masochistic of players would probably enjoy playing without time pressure much more than they would with it.

Bounce Symphony introduces as many variations as possible as the game progresses to keep things fresh: score multipliers, bombs, blocks, super-heavy rocks, and so on. The developers have done a fair job with keeping things interesting, although the core interaction with the game remains the same which dampens long-term enjoyment.

The Think game mode is completely different. It’s a puzzle mode, of sorts, where you’re given a bunch of balls and a desired arrangement for those balls. Sometimes there is a trick to lining everything up, but more than anything this mode feels like busywork. Oftentimes it’s just plain obvious how to do it, but you end up spending most of your time trying to do things like a swap a ball on the bottom with one on the top.

Physics Game Design

Bounce Symphony didn’t do tremendously well in the market, from what I understand. It’s easy to play armchair game designer with these kinds of things, of course, and much harder to actually develop a fun game. Nonetheless, my two cents:

I think Sprout missed the mark at a very fundamental level. What’s fun about a physics game? Is it knocking stuff around? Smashing things? Setting up domino-style chain reactions? Or aligning objects with anal-retentive attention to detail? I think Bounce Symphony is fighting its physics game nature with its goal structures. At the very least, if accurate alignment is a goal the balls should be twice their size.

I would have liked to see Bounce Symphony explore other possible goals with their engine, and especially explore dynamic stages. As is, nothing moves by itself; player interaction is the only force that turns the static play field into something more interesting.

(Bounce Symphony Game Screenshots)

Untapped Potential

I have to wonder if the old Sprout team, now at PopCap, ever toys with the notion of revisiting the concept of a physics-based casual game. I think there’s a lot of mileage to be had here. Caramba Deluxe took a good stab it, but I’m surprised other developers don’t give it a go.

Bounce Symphony can be a relaxing distraction from a day’s work unless, of course, you work at a marble factory as a color quality control engineer. Then you should go shoot zombies or something with your gaming time.

Bounce Symphony can be downloaded for a free 60-minute trial from such places as Shockwave and RealArcade. The full version of the game is $20.

P.S. A Quick History Lesson

The original Bounce was developed by Escape Factory, a small retail console game developer. After they had canceled their primary project there was company downtime while they sniffed around for renewed funding. During this time they developed handful of small games, one of which was Bounce. Several months later the founders of Escape Factory created a new company specifically to develop casual titles: Sprout Games. Last summer, PopCap Games acquired Sprout (for what was undoubtedly several millions of dollars). All’s well that ends well, I guess.

(Rate this game! 176 votes, average: 4.09 out of 5)

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Truck Dismount by Jetro is the sequel to his runaway paste-around, Stair Dismount. The core concept remains the same: Mangle the ragdoll. This time, though, the poor guy is on and around a moving truck instead of a static set of stairs.

Optimizing Sliders

The gameplay hook is the same as Stair Dismount. You as the player configure the playfield: how fast the truck moves, where the ragdoll starts, windshield on or off, the location of the speed bumps, and so. After you press “go”, you simply sit back and watch.

Experimentation is key. Is it better to put the ragdoll man on top of the car so he flies off? Or inside, to begin with, and hope he falls out if the truck tips over? Does a slower-moving truck mean a longer time to deal damage?

Extrapolation of the Genre

Truck Dismount is fun, for a bit, but it suits players who prefer to optimize a single set of variables. Even with the inherent replay value of physics games, I get bored easily. Personally, I would love to see the hurt-the-ragdoll concept extended far past a simple scenario. Imagine a street intersection with a bunch of ragdolls: You choose when the grandma ragdoll starts to cross the street, when two cars depart, and where the paperboy ragdoll goes on his bike. I could play with that for the better part of an hour. The possibility space of a set of stairs or a truck, a wall, and two speed bumps is really quite limited by comparison.

Pick up the Pace

My other gripe with the Dismount games is their pacing. Now, granted, this is obviously a design decision, and there is a certain mesmerizing allure to the lack of interactivity in the current games. Personally, I would love to see more action and faster motion. Fire a ragdoll out of a cannon, or strap one to a stunt-jumping motorbike, or something. Toss some explosions in there. The dynamism of a physics engine isn’t being exploited to its fullest with damped, lethargic motion.

Content?

Finally, the single scenario provided in Truck Dismount wears out pretty quickly. If you’ve spent an hour fiddling with the game once, you really don’t have much a reason to come back to it ever again. It would be great to see more scenarios in future games [editor’s note: there’s actually a level editor in the up-and-coming Dismount Levels game].

(Truck Dismount Game Screenshots)

It’s Free, It’s Fun!

Still, Truck Dismount is a great extension of the original Dismount concept. I think at some point in their childhood everyone smashed up an action figure or doll. Truck Dismount lets you tap into that adolescent urge again and again. Best of all, nobody actually gets hurt (unless you play enough to get wrist pains, of course, in which case you should really look into getting a pair of Softflex gloves).

Download Truck Dismount game here (2.0 MB), or head on over to Jetro’s Dismount page for the other titles.