Throw Metal Pies at Ragdoll Clowns (Redux)
(Rate this game! 118 votes, average: 3.47 out of 5)
Loading...Have you ever wanted to swap out a clown’s cream pie with a metal replacement? That next performance would take a grisly–but hilarious–turn for the unexpected. Or, you could do away with the subterfuge altogether and simply lob metal pies at hapless clowns. That would be wrong, and possibly illegal, unless it was a totally awesome video game. Why look! It is!
The Old Version
I created a prototype of I Hate Clowns in the fall of 2003. It was a three-day project, and was seriously lacking in art production. I’ve already talked about the old version on Fun-Motion, so I won’t double up with my comments here. If you’re interested in some of the design aspects of the game be sure to give the old review a read.
New Art, New Code
So why create a completely new version of I Hate Clowns? I was in need of a simple game concept to use as a test bed for evaluating game engine technologies. You can learn a lot just by poking and prodding an engine, reading the docs and trying out individual features, but you learn a lot more if you bother to implement a complete game with new art, a GUI, level progression, and so on. Coincidentally, Over The Edge Entertainment was sponsoring a game development contest just as I began to evaluate Unity, OTEE’s technology. We only had two weeks before the deadline, so we needed something small. I decided that a new I Hate Clowns game would be a perfect fit with the amount of time we had.
The end result is the game you see here. A friend of mine and talented technical artist, Adam Mechtley, created the clown and environment over two weekends. The code only took a few days–I spent a lot more time breaking things and experimenting with various features in Unity. Although I joined the contest primarily as motivation for evaluating Unity, we actually took third place (scoring a free Unity license and video card in the process).
What Next?
One of the reasons I wanted to revisit I Hate Clowns is because the game is surprisingly addictive. I think there’s a lot of potential here for building a “real” game: add some variety in level pacing, different weapons, more interactive environments, and a simple point system to spend on upgrades and bonuses, etc. In my opinion the game is only a few development months away from being a commercially-viable indie title. We currently have it shelved as a potential project for 2007.
(I Hate Clowns: Operation Pie Gones Game Screenshots)
The Pie’s the Limit
For now, though, I Hate Clowns remains a simple prototype. At least this time around there’s all-new art and physics balancing to enjoy. And, hey, we’re giving the game away for free. What reason do you have not to mess up some clowns?
Download I Hate Clowns: Operation Pie Gones Game (13 MB, Windows)
Download Mac OS Version (19 MB, Universal Binary)
And if other developers are curious: We’re pretty happy with Unity. There are cons as well as pros, of course, but it does a lot of things really well. They have a free 30-day evaluation copy on their website if you’d like to try it out.
Related Posts:
- Pummel Ragdoll Clowns (Right in Your Web Browser!)
- I Hate Clowns: Let Pie Gones Be Pie Gones
- I Hate Clowns (Web Version)
- This Made My Day
- List of Physics Games
My name is Matthew Wegner, and this site is dedicated to physics games.
on February 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Awesome.
About to download. Wow, connecting to the RSS feed really helped, I’m the third person to vote on it.
on February 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Wow. A game better than Armadillo Run? Definitly downloading.
on February 3rd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Just played the game, loved it. But you made level 47 impossible!
on February 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Quite a lot of fun, but I have no idea how to go about beating that last level. Is it supposed to be impossible?
on February 3rd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
This game keeps crashing, it won’t open properly. Can I get it from somewhere else?
on February 4th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Hot! New version is just a impressively better than the original, considering the amount of time put into the difference.
Would love to see some more items to throw and maybe an alternative way to throw them (frisbee-style?). Also, more visceral and resounding feedback for when the pies make contact would add a lot, I think. Think *THUD* + the giggle, instead of just the latter.
Keep it up!
on February 4th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Oh wow! That is such an amazing improvement! 5 Stars ! Th is now has some serious potential.
look forward to seeing more, but now i’m off to **** up some clowns!
on February 4th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Holy crap! Data has talked! All hail Data and the new build!
Im downloading this right now, never tried the original :(
on February 4th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Next you need saw blades and dismemberment. Unless thats a little too morbid…
on February 4th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Haha, use Kyle’s idea with soft body physics. :P
on February 4th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Macauley: Email me about the crash (email address at the top-right of the page). I can give you a test build to see if the DRM is causing the crash or if Unity itself is crashing.
And yeah: the last level isn’t possible. Making it impossible was my solution to ending the game, rather than having to code a game over screen ;)
on February 5th, 2007 at 12:08 am
“Got a SIGSEGV while executing native code. This usually indicates
a fatal error in the mono runtime or one of the native libraries
used by your application.”
Any ideas why I got this error message?
on February 5th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Is there any way to mod this game?
on February 5th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Awesome game Matthew, though the giggling sound will stay with me for a while of. *shudders* I would’ve liked if the last level had unlimited metal pies though, with unlimited amount of clowns flying around and respawning. But all in all, a great game.
on February 5th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
“So why create a completely new version of I Hate Clowns?”
Because you really, _really_ hate clowns? :)
on February 5th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
is that a typo? You said that it “wasn’t” imposible, then you said that you “made” it impossible.
on February 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Good job you two! Third place!
-TGP-
on February 6th, 2007 at 8:56 am
@Dylan:
Matt has said: “And yeah: the last level isn’t possible. Making it impossible was my solution to ending the game, rather than having to code a game over screen ;)”
He said “the last level isn’t _possible_” and “Making it _impossible_”, SO, it’s really Impossible! It was not a error…
on February 6th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
xD
‘Nuff said.
Makes me want to go and punch a clown…and tomorrow I’m going to a circus with a friend…hehe…
on February 6th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
This game should go on Nintendo Wii. That would be awesome.
on February 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
It still doesn’t make sense, i will explain myself again, he said this: “the last level isn’t impossible” meaning you can beat it somehow. But then he said: “Making it impossible…” meaning he made it impossible, but before he said it wasn’t, so what does he really mean?
on February 6th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
@Dylan
o.o” Man, look,” the last level isn’t POSSIBLE.” See now?? The Last Level Isn’t POSSIBLE! So Matt IMpossible, understand now??o.o”
on February 7th, 2007 at 8:28 am
“And yeah: the last level isn’t possible. Making it impossible was my solution to ending the game”
It isn’t POSSIBLE, so it is IMPOSSIBLE. You crosseyed or something?
I’ve played 3 times through the game, and …once more!
on February 11th, 2007 at 10:46 am
@Dylan
I quote: “And yeah: the last level ISN’T POSSIBLE. Making it IMPOSSIBLE was my solution to ending the game, rather than having to code a game over screen ;)”
maybe u shud have ur eyes checked… brainscan 2 maybe…
on February 12th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I have played the i hate clowns, and i played this and wow this was awesome, how about adding other throwable items? would that be possible to mod? like i want to throw them with pies, not metal pies, or sawblades would be nice too :D