Crayon Physics Deluxe – An original video game that looks like your 6-year-old child’s drawing

As any serious gamer knows there is an annual Game Developers Conference which gives a chance for all the major players in the gaming industry to boast with their latest projects. Those who attended the last meeting, for instance, were offered a preview of the forthcoming Gears of War II, a richly detailed sci-fi action game that seems almost impossible to tell apart from a blockbuster SF film. Although the graphical level gets nearly excessive, the Gears of War II was not the one to catch the eye of the attendees.

The star of the conference was a game called Crayon Physics Deluxe which needed no showy demo played to an overcrowded audience to get everyone’s attention. If you wonder how could a game that looks like the drawing attempts of a six year old win instantly the hearts of so many heavy gamers…well…take a look at this:

Now it all makes sense, right?

Basically, with Crayon Physics Deluxe you can draw objects on the screen just by clicking and moving your mouse, or using the stylus of a tablet PC, as shown in the video. The spectacular now comes – these objects that you scribble are integrated into the game world. What you have to do (the objective) is to design objects that propel a bluntly drawn ball toward a bluntly drawn star. What’s more, you cannot find that single correct way of moving that ball around because, simply, there isn’t any. Your creativity is all that matters – having fun as exploring the possibilities. As soon as you start the game you're drawn into frantic drawing (or should we say scribbling) blocks and ramps or whatever just to meet that goal. There’s no surprise that some will forget all about the any objective and just enjoy their drawing.

However, this apparently unpretentious drawing game did not enjoy the same huge demo promotion as Gears of War II. Crayon Physics Deluxe was part of the Independent Games Festival that's connected to the Game Developers Conference. It’s ten years since The Independent Games Festival has been part of the conference, but it seems that finally this year the small league has outdone the big one. Due to fast Internet-connection it relatively easy for anyone to offer the game for download, and there's also a massive built-in online public for simple, time-wasting "casual games." The number of those craving for a simple instant start-and-play game (instead of an oversophisticated one) that would help them kill some time between tasks and meetings is getting bigger than ever. It also seems that the big game publishers are becoming aware of this; for instance, Electronic Arts announced an EA Casual Games Division late in 2007.

While games such as Gears of War II take a few years, teams of hundreds of people, and tens of millions of dollars to create, those coming from the small league like Crayon Physics Deluxe may be designed by your secluded neighbour in his tiny apartment. This latter game was created by a 24-year-old student at Helsinki Polytechnic, Petri Purho. As he stated his games creating rate is about one a month. What’s in it for him you ask? Well, he offers them as free, PC-only downloads on his personal site. The young developer said his hobby was stirred when he get acquainted with the Experimental Gameplay Project (which is the equivalent of Dogme 95 for indie game developers). Here are basic principles of EGP:

Each game must be made in less than seven days.
Each game must be made by exactly one person.
Each game must be based around a common theme, i.e., "gravity," "vegetation," "swarms," etc.