View Full Version : Open Game Development Competition #1 - Broken Physics
First off, I just need to apologise, this was going to begin last night but I had a change of mind and decided to change the topic. Also, you may start from the posting of this thread (don't stress about the start time too much).
Broken physics. Various laws govern everything that happens in this world, it is our challenge this month to create games to give new experiences to players. Typically we take for granted the effects of physics (and dont even take everything into account in the games we make), but I challenge you to break the laws of physics to create something interesting and new.
Imagine if we were repelled by gravity but had to land on planets to get resources? Or had to physically stop ourselves as there was no such thing as friction? The more mass an object is the easier it is to carry? Infinite friction everywhere except in the air? Small objects having a larger attraction towards big objects (you draw planets to your tiny ship for instance)? Being closer to an object makes it more difficult to see?
Still not sure what exactly I mean? Take a look at Variance by Nandrew: Variance (Super Proto Edition) (http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showthread.php?10860-Variance-(Super-Proto-Edition))
You get different directions of gravity according to what colour you are standing on. A prime example of a broken law of physics giving the player a new and interestingly different world to explore.
If you have any questions, reply here or contact me via email. Good luck, and have fun!
Rules:
Competition starts on May 3rd, GMT 00:01 AM
Entries are due on June 2nd, GMT 23:59 PM (extra days due to my slow posting)
You may not use any content you do not have the rights to use, or plagiarise.
You need to include a readme.txt with your final entry that explains how to play the game and provides all extra information the player would need to get your game running. CONTROLS, RULES and any other information you want to get across to your users.
The judges' decision is final and no negotiation will be entered into. All risk or liability in case of copyright infringement or other legal issue resides with the entrant, the forums and communities taking part and supporting the competition cannot be held liable.
Entering:
To enter the competition, submit a link to the download for your game and your development thread/blog via email to edg3 [at] realdev.co.za, please bear in mind that emails received outside the time window may be disqualified at the Judges' discretion.
You also have to have a public post/thread somewhere for community interaction!!
Side notes:
Try to keep people up to date with what you are doing on the project, that way you can constantly have feedback from the people who will in the end play your game. If you arent part of a community, or just dont know where to post about your game I suggest you go to (ONLY if you are sure you want to finish your idea properly) 1monthgame.com (http://www.1monthgame.com).
BlackShipsFillt
02-05-2011, 07:40 PM
Ah! This sounds super-interesting!
Correct me if I am wrong, but would another example of broken physics be "Tiny Wings"?
It's not exactly presented as such, but whenever the player touches the screen the gravity is increased (There was a game before Tiny Wings that had the exact same mechanic but flavoured it as an actual increase in gravity).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6pT_2E5xI0
My question really is: Does allowing the player unnatural manipulation of physics qualify?
If that were so then Gish would be another great example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WzGQQOIcp8
Yeah, they both can work (Gish seems to have quite an awesome mechanic where you actually cause effects to happen on other objects [pushing/grabbing], I may be wrong, but with a little push you can fit Gish :P)
BlackShipsFillt
02-05-2011, 08:28 PM
Gish is actually quite a deceptively simple/brilliant puzzle/platformer. Besides up/down/left/right you have four other keys that effect Gish's physical properties:
Sticky - Allows Gish to stick to surfaces and grab objects
Slick - Makes Gish slippery, allowing to squeeze between tight gaps for an example.
Heavy - Turns Gish more rigid and greatly increases the gravity factor, allowing to crush things and fall faster
Expand - Same as heavy except the gravity factor increase. Mainly used for jumping.
There have been a couple of games since then that have borrowed these mechanics for different purposes... although I'm not certain as to whether Gish was the first or not.
BlackShipsFillt
02-05-2011, 08:51 PM
What about Loco Roco? It allows the player to tilt the world to slide around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfDr9eD7wKY
Sorry about posting all these videos... It's just kind of exciting to have all this creative freedom
I'm not certain, but are there links to implementations of Box 2D on these forums? I think that getting hold of a decent physics engine is where some people could start with a project like this... although of course it doesn't have to be done using proper physics, Nandrew's Variance created interesting puzzles with a very simple simulation.
I might try porting Box 2D to Unity. [edit] I just discovered that Unity 3 allows rigidbodies to be limited to 2D, so Box2D is no longer as much of an advantage.
dislekcia
02-05-2011, 09:53 PM
Entering:
To enter the competition, submit a link to the download for your game and your development thread/blog via email to edg3 [at] realdev.co.za, please bear in mind that emails received outside the time window may be disqualified at the Judges' discretion.
Why no mandatory forum thread? We know that forcing discussion on entries helps way more than it might chase people away... Sure, the notes section has some good points, but give people somewhere concrete to head to. Plus it helps if you treat people like they're definitely going to make cool **** and put in the effort: If you act like backing out is "sorta ok and expected" less people will enter in the first place.
BlackShipsFillt
02-05-2011, 10:42 PM
Why no mandatory forum thread? We know that forcing discussion on entries helps way more than it might chase people away... Sure, the notes section has some good points, but give people somewhere concrete to head to. Plus it helps if you treat people like they're definitely going to make cool **** and put in the effort: If you act like backing out is "sorta ok and expected" less people will enter in the first place.
Yeah, what's with the direction away from this community? I mean 1monthgame.com is cool and all, but I kind of like the local chatter here at Game.Dev.
If there were to be direction away from Game.Dev it should surely be to a "Open Game Development Competition" website? As apposed to another game development/competition's website?
Also, on that note, could "Open Game Development Competition" be renamed so that "OMG" was in the acronym... like "Open Monthly Games Development Competition" which could be shortened to "OMG Development Competition"... just a thought
dislekcia
02-05-2011, 10:59 PM
OMGcomp!
BlackShipsFillt
02-05-2011, 11:40 PM
OMGcomp.com!! (is available)
Why no mandatory forum thread? We know that forcing discussion on entries helps way more than it might chase people away... Sure, the notes section has some good points, but give people somewhere concrete to head to. Plus it helps if you treat people like they're definitely going to make cool **** and put in the effort: If you act like backing out is "sorta ok and expected" less people will enter in the first place.
Eh, I wasn't meaning to draw away from the forums and community (hence the needing a thread/blog where you keep updates to your game and allow feedback) I just didn't explicitly say you needed to post on the forums or on a blog (or both) just that the requirement was that you have to have info somewhere publicly about your game (as not everyone is part of or wants to be part of the communities where I have posted this).
If I had the money I would set up a site for it, but we still have to see how this goes.
Also, Loco Roco it looks like you control the blob by changing gravity and making it jump. The gravity changing works, so yeah that fits too :)
Not to mention the rubber world is just cool...
Fengol
03-05-2011, 09:26 AM
"Johansen swears he was swallowed up by an angle of masonry that shouldn’t have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse" - The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft.
This is all I can think of for Broken Physics.
BlackShipsFillt
03-05-2011, 09:58 AM
Cthulhu += 100000 points!
I'm hoping I'll have some free time towards the end of the month... I'd like to make a little gravity manipulation game with faces on all the objects.
dislekcia
03-05-2011, 12:11 PM
Had a random idea this morning, it's probably a little meta (given what I've been thinking about recently) but broken physics to me means that something doesn't perform to our expectations in surprising ways.
Physics is all about discovering the rules that govern systems, so what we're doing as we're playing a new game is discovering the specific physics of that game world. For physics to be broken, we'd need to come to expect certain things and then have certain situations where those expectations are simply wrong. Examples include a platform game with all the "unrealistic physics" of being able to jump super high, but you'd take actual fall damage when you landed from the 2 storey drop caused by a "normal" jump.
This morning's idea was to use any dice-based system, but each time the player starts a new game, the dice throw outcomes are randomly statistically loaded so that each value is not equally likely. It'd then fall to the player to figure out this universe's probability loading and play accordingly. Dunno if that would be any fun though... You'd have to make the dice an obvious element of everything that could happen in order to get people to realise there was a meta-element to the play.
... Examples include a platform game with all the "unrealistic physics" of being able to jump super high, but you'd take actual fall damage when you landed from the 2 storey drop caused by a "normal" jump....
I like that idea, I'm possibly going to fiddle with one or two of the mechanics just as prototypes for things I could use in future and this is something that could lead to some fascinating design. It makes me think of how in Portal to achieve enough speed to cover some distance you have to walk through a portal to a high place and place one on the lower place to gain the momentum, but you dont really care if you die a few times from falling as there isnt perma death, but I have been toying around with platformer roguelike ideas for a little while and this could fit in nicely, trading safety for higher reach.
This morning's idea was to use any dice-based system, but each time the player starts a new game, the dice throw outcomes are randomly statistically loaded so that each value is not equally likely. It'd then fall to the player to figure out this universe's probability loading and play accordingly. Dunno if that would be any fun though... You'd have to make the dice an obvious element of everything that could happen in order to get people to realise there was a meta-element to the play. So you will basically change the physics behaviours all as a whole according to the dice as some random seed? If you coupled this with some physics based weaponry you could make a mean puzzle game where the 5~10 levels can all be replayed a large number of times according to the dice roll, giving each puzzle a new difficulty/challenge for the player.
dislekcia
03-05-2011, 11:01 PM
So you will basically change the physics behaviours all as a whole according to the dice as some random seed? If you coupled this with some physics based weaponry you could make a mean puzzle game where the 5~10 levels can all be replayed a large number of times according to the dice roll, giving each puzzle a new difficulty/challenge for the player.
I wasn't thinking anything that complicated: More like a game where you do damage as 2d6 or whatever, but the dice rolls aren't as random as you think :)
FuzzYspo0N
04-05-2011, 01:44 AM
Just a note, OneMonthGame is already being branded as OMG.
Secondly, the one month game isnt a community, its just a public challenge to motivate yourself, where you obviously should be posting in a normal community for feedback of course.
I read the Broken Physics theme in LD themes to be more about physics that dont quite work as they should, kinda like octodad.
http://www.octodadgame.com/
Just thought I would bump this thread to remind everyone that this is still going on.
I must say, the response after initial interest is rather underwhelming.
BlackShipsFillt
14-05-2011, 04:41 PM
I'm trying to release Pocket RPG in the next couple weeks... it's rather frustrating because I have a concept that I really want to do.
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