Physics Games — Cut the Rope & Angry Birds

On the surface Cut the Rope and Angry Birds seem like completely different games.

Cut the Rope lives inside boxes, literally. The game starts with an intro sequence where the player is delivered a strange package with the message “Feed with Candy”. So appropriately, the first level is a cardboard box, and each level after is some type of box.

On the flip side, Angry Birds (specifically Angry Birds 2) lives out in the open. Its scenes are very zoomed out and contain huge landscape scenes. This allows the arc of the birds to actually make sense, physics wise. Even the level progress is a landscape scene.

This is the power of theme because when you go beyond it, the games are quite similar. Both involve an initial action, cutting the first rope or releasing the slingshot, and a few subsequent time-dependent reactions such as popping bubbles or activating secondary powers. Both are considered physics games since they rely on the basic principles of physics (what goes up, must come down etc) which allows players to quickly make sense of the challenges and figure out the puzzles.