Physics Games and Physics-Based Game Downloads

(Rate this game! 161 votes, average: 4.08 out of 5)

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Switchball is a new game by Atomic Elbow, creators of the IGF-nominated Crazyball. They bill it as a sequel (although Crazyball was never finished?) and describe it as:

Steer the Switchball past traps and puzzles in 20 increasingly challenging levels by morphing between balls with different properties and abilities. Use machines and elements like magnets, fans, cannons, fire, water and many more in a game that gives you the fun of oldschool platform gaming with ultra realistic physics and awesome 3D graphics!

The game falls into the roll-the-ball-to-the-goal genre with as many inventive physics contraptions as possible to get in your way. Switchball utilizes the Ageia physics engine, which means there are a lot of possibilities for innovative obstacles. Atomic Elbow promises 4 levels that will be exclusive to owners of the upcoming PhysX hardware, which is interesting. I’ve actually heard that Ageia licenses its technology for free to small developers who will support their hardware.

Gameplay in Switchball is a mix between skill-based maneuvering and thinking-based puzzles. Various pods throughout the level will change your ball’s physical attributes: to a super-heavy metal ball, lightweight ball, or electric ball and so on (as far as I know Ballance was the first game to use this material-changing theme). Getting through a level requires you change materials as needed to get by obstacles. A metal ball is too heavy to cross a wooden plank, for instance, but burly enough to push the preceding crates out of the way. Alternating materials several times is usually required to get by an area.

This review is based on a free 1-level alpha demo of Switchball that Atomic Elbow recently released. They warn that this isn’t indicative of the final quality of the game, but as far as I can tell everything is top-notch. The graphics and audio are both excellent. My one complaint is that the camera feels a little weak. I’m often manually controlling its orientation and zoom level to see where I need to go which can be annoying. Of course, in a game like this the camera is everything and it’s certainly a difficult development challenge. If they can polish up the camera movement Switchball will indeed be a very excellent game when it’s done.

(Switchball Game Screenshots)

The game is available for download here or over at Atomic Elbow’s site. They are actively soliciting feedback for this release, so if you check it out and have some suggestions feel free to let them know.

Atomic Elbow’s Crazyball was nominated in the Independent Games Festival 2006 for the Technical Excellence award. They’ve kicked their craft up a notch since then with Switchball. Check out the free download of this great physics game!

Download the game here (43.2 MB).