Two Physics Games with Different Themes
Critical Play | CS247G Game Design Fundamentals
I picked two physics games on the iPad that I played when I was a kid.
Cut The Rope
Cut the Rope is a series of puzzle games developed by ZeptoLab. The game’s objective is to deliver an object to a destination leveraging physics, such as gravity, elastic force, and inertia, and meanwhile, to collect as many stars as possible.
The theme is simple and cute, where the player needs to feed Om Nom, the little green creature (a frog?) candies. The drawing is simple and cute, and the background (for this level) mimics a carton box, which creates a cozy scene for the game and a relaxed gameplay environment for the player.
The game introduces a lot of physics components to enrich the overall experience. It is fun to manipulate all these operations, and it is not hard to pick up the skills since the instructions are represented in a proper, clear, and easy-to-understand way. In later stages, it is more difficult where the player has freedom for exploration. There is no harm in trying everything.
The overall experience could be pretty relaxed if there are fewer advertisements. Since there is no connection among levels, Cut the Rope is a great game to spend some short periods of free time.
Angry Birds
Angry Birds is a series of puzzle games developed by Rovio Entertainment. The game’s objective is to hit and destroy stuff by projecting objects and leveraging trajectory.
The player controls a flock of birds to get their eggs back by defeating a group of green pigs. In particular, those birds can either hit the enemies or destroy their shelters made of materials such as wood, stone, and ice. Different types of birds have their special skills, so the player needs to optimize the strategy.
I played Angry Birds 2, where the mechanics and the interface are much fancier then I remembered, with tons of stuff going on on the screen. Sometimes you can gain an extra chance of projecting a bird by performing well on previous shots. There are a certain number of times you can “revive” to continue the current level by refilling all birds, which I thought was “restart” the level so I used all chance immediately. After finishing 1 season for 15 levels, I still could not figure out many of them.
I appreciate the use of cute animals in the theme to make the game relaxed and attract players of all ages. However, I feel like there are too many extraneous elements that distract attention.
