Crayon Physics Deluxe

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When you were a kid, did you doodle during class? Draw little pictures in the margins when you were supposed to be listening? Unless you're one of our few readers from outer space (hi Glorgnax), chances are you probably did. If so, Crayon Physics Deluxe is for you.

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a great physics puzzle game in the vein of The Incredible Machine and Armadillo Run, but instead of a toolbox of wacky gadgets, all you get is a crayon. Anything you draw with the crayon -- from blocks to hinges to ropes -- acts just like it were real. The level is a blank sheet of brown paper just waiting for your creations to be scribbled onto the page. You can draw anything you want. The puzzles are fairly open as well, and any level can turn into a crazy landscape of crayon squiggles if you have the imagination. The blank paper and multi-colored crayons combine with the poignant, haunting music to create an experience that really feels like you're a kid again, doodling in the margins.

The game doesn't end with the standard levels, either. The level editor is powerful, and it's easy to share your levels online with the community Playground. You can already find tons of user-made levels. The demo even includes a demo of the level editor.

Why You Should Check This Out: Because this is the most fun I've had with a physics game since the Gravity Gun in Half Life 2. The puzzles don't have just “one way” to solve them: any crazy idea you can dream up is ready to be drawn. The simplistic visuals and music make me feel like a kid in kindergarden with a box of Crayolas and a big blank sheet of construction paper.


[size=20]Download Demo Now[/size]

Comments

Oh and the full game is $19.95, if you want to pick that up.

I've been playing this on my iPhone, and played a ton in Beta. The game is awesome. Now I'll need to get the PC version for the level editor! Curse you!

Hey — how about mentioning the platforms the game is available for up front? Not being a PC gamer I can pretty much assume that it's Not For Me, but it would shorten the painful lifespan of that glimmer of hope I have every time I read one of these reviews (damn you, Horse and Sword! or whatever the name of that other game that sounds awesome is).

lostlobster wrote:

Hey — how about mentioning the platforms the game is available for up front? Not being a PC gamer I can pretty much assume that it's Not For Me, but it would shorten the painful lifespan of that glimmer of hope I have every time I read one of these reviews (damn you, Horse and Sword! or whatever the name of that other game that sounds awesome is).

I agree that we should make sure to mention platforms in the future, but I question this "not a PC gamer" bit. I don't generally consider myself a PC gamer these days, but that's more of a choice than a function of ability.

Do you not have a PC, or are you afraid that your PC can't run these? A lot of fringe games are PC titles, but they're also often fairly light on the system requirements. If there isn't a Linux or Mac version, I'd bet you could get them running through Parallels or Wine as well, if it's an OS issue.

I actually just got this last night, after playing the demo. It's great fun with a tablet, and though so far the puzzles haven't really gone beyond the standard physics game fare, it's refreshing not to be limited to a predetermined set of ways to interact with the environment.

stupidhaiku wrote:

I actually just got this last night, after playing the demo. It's great fun with a tablet, and though so far the puzzles haven't really gone beyond the standard physics game fare, it's refreshing not to be limited to a predetermined set of ways to interact with the environment.

You should check out some of the more creative solution walkthroughs out there on the net, there may be a standard physics way of doing things but it's so freeform there's plenty of non-standard ways too

wordsmythe wrote:
lostlobster wrote:

Hey — how about mentioning the platforms the game is available for up front? Not being a PC gamer I can pretty much assume that it's Not For Me, but it would shorten the painful lifespan of that glimmer of hope I have every time I read one of these reviews (damn you, Horse and Sword! or whatever the name of that other game that sounds awesome is).

I agree that we should make sure to mention platforms in the future, but I question this "not a PC gamer" bit. I don't generally consider myself a PC gamer these days, but that's more of a choice than a function of ability.

Do you not have a PC, or are you afraid that your PC can't run these? A lot of fringe games are PC titles, but they're also often fairly light on the system requirements. If there isn't a Linux or Mac version, I'd bet you could get them running through Parallels or Wine as well, if it's an OS issue.

I don't have a PC, and haven't been tempted enough yet (although it's getting close) to set up Parallels or Wine. It just seems like a lot of work, plus I've got this pile of XBox games I need to get to...

lostlobster wrote:

Hey — how about mentioning the platforms the game is available for up front? Not being a PC gamer I can pretty much assume that it's Not For Me, but it would shorten the painful lifespan of that glimmer of hope I have every time I read one of these reviews (damn you, Horse and Sword! or whatever the name of that other game that sounds awesome is).

Do you mean Windows/OSX/Linux? Or PC/XBox? Honestly, I won't be doing any main releases here, so unless something really awesome pops up in the XNA Community stuff all these games will probably be PC only.

*edit* Ah I see you mean OSX. Well if other platforms are available I'll be sure to mention it. But the default is generally Windows only.

rabbit wrote:

I've been playing this on my iPhone, and played a ton in Beta. The game is awesome. Now I'll need to get the PC version for the level editor! Curse you!

It runs all right on the iPhone? I'd heard that the controls weren't precise enough. This may have been from some nut who insists on using only Wacom tablets for games like this.

lostlobster wrote:

Hey — how about mentioning the platforms the game is available for up front? Not being a PC gamer I can pretty much assume that it's Not For Me, but it would shorten the painful lifespan of that glimmer of hope I have every time I read one of these reviews (damn you, Horse and Sword! or whatever the name of that other game that sounds awesome is).

Ha ha, Horse and Sword, that'd be a terrible game! Either you spend many slow, grisly hours trying to hack the horse into manageable chunks, or worse yet, you sit around bored while the final boss horse repeatedly tries, and fails, to pick up the sword and attack.

Nyles wrote:

Ha ha, Horse and Sword, that'd be a terrible game! Either you spend many slow, grisly hours trying to hack the horse into manageable chunks, or worse yet, you sit around bored while the final boss horse repeatedly tries, and fails, to pick up the sword and attack.

I guess I'll stop coding that now...

I tried the demo for this, and it was a fun 10 minute romp through a physics based world. I don't see what everybody is totally excited about personally, but it's a solid game for physics nuts. Plus it has a light-hearted attitude about itself. Nice job Indy developer.

Nyles wrote:

It runs all right on the iPhone? I'd heard that the controls weren't precise enough. This may have been from some nut who insists on using only Wacom tablets for games like this.

Here's another thread with some mentions of iPhone performance: http://mobile.gamerswithjobs.com/nod...

Nyles wrote:

It runs all right on the iPhone? I'd heard that the controls weren't precise enough. This may have been from some nut who insists on using only Wacom tablets for games like this.

Here's another thread with a mention of iPhone performance: http://mobile.gamerswithjobs.com/nod...

Played the demo, all laughin' out loud with the wifey while doing it. But I won't be getting to it immediately, since I still have Gravity Bone sitting on my desktop, giving me a sort of rib jab, wondering if I'll crack it open and find out what the heck that title could possibly mean.

While I enjoyed the beta and found the creative concept appealing, I don't see myself taking "game time" away from my current rotation and investing into this. I think my fiance would enjoy this, but she's on a macbook. Might pick this up for her iPod Touch though.

Very soothing.

Infuriating with a mouse, more fun with a tablet. Unfortunately the combination of tablet and crayons simply compelled me to regress, endow all the stick men with grotesque genitalia, draw lewd speech balloons, then scribble wildly all over the screen. I defy any child presented with a tablet PC and this game not to do that.

To my jaded adult eyes the whole style of this thing is irritatingly saccharine. No... wait, something is wrong here, happy crayon playtime doesn't sit well with physics. It's like entering the mind of those eight-year-old child prodigy MENSA members who get into the local newspaper for solving Fermat's last theorem, find solace in drugs at 13 and commit suicide before they're 20.

I half expect the retail version to become intensely dark towards the end, tackling themes of a childhood torn apart by domestic abuse. The final boss is an overbearing civil engineer crayoned in terrifying demonic form enveloped in a tornado of set-squares, rulers and pairs of compasses.

Insectecutor wrote:

I half expect the retail version to become intensely dark towards the end, tackling themes of a childhood torn apart by domestic abuse.

That's...that's f*cking genius.

Sensical wrote:
Insectecutor wrote:

I half expect the retail version to become intensely dark towards the end, tackling themes of a childhood torn apart by domestic abuse.

That's...that's f*cking genius.

Sadly, it does not. However there is a level editor ...

Do I need a tablet to play this?

I'm not having a lot of success figuring out what (if anything) would be necessary to get the most out of this game from their website.

It looks cool though since stick people and such are pretty much all I can draw with any success.

You don't need a tablet or a touchscreen, it's just so much more natural to draw with a "crayon" than with a mouse.

Yeah I played it with a mouse and it was fine

Thanks! I think I'll download this and start scribbling

It's a great office game. By that, meaning: you know those times between crunch times when everyone just hangs out briefly, so someone turns on Bejeweled or something and the rest of the office cheers/ridicules that person's performance? I installed Crayon Physics (before Deluxe) and got a few people hooked on it, and it was always a laugh riot seeing people try different things on each map. Put it on your communal office machine.

Pretty interesting. Reminds me of a flash game called Fantastic Contraption (which, iirc, is accessible for free through their website). I didn't feel a "sense of freedom" from CPD, though. Most of the puzzles in the demo were solved by a ramp, a weight, or a hammer... at least from my POV.

Anyone know how to make a moving car like in the video on their site?

Liked the demo, but is the full version $20 fun? Also, how does this compare to World of Goo (of which I also enjoyed the demo but have not pulled the trigger)?

Nightmare wrote:

Liked the demo, but is the full version $20 fun? Also, how does this compare to World of Goo (of which I also enjoyed the demo but have not pulled the trigger)?

I would say the full version of World of Goo has alot more content than the full version of Crayon Physics Deluxe. However, I paid for the full version of Crayon Physics and I definitely got my $20 out of it.

World of Goo and Crayon Physics both give me that sense of lighthearted, cerebral fun. I'd say they were very similar if a bit different in eventual execution and strategy.

Delta wrote:

Anyone know how to make a moving car like in the video on their site?

The only moving cars I've come across have been preformed objects in the game world. I tried building one via wheels and a frame but it required . . . refinement.

Nightmare wrote:

Liked the demo, but is the full version $20 fun? Also, how does this compare to World of Goo (of which I also enjoyed the demo but have not pulled the trigger)?

PyromanFO wrote:
Nightmare wrote:

Liked the demo, but is the full version $20 fun? Also, how does this compare to World of Goo (of which I also enjoyed the demo but have not pulled the trigger)?

I would say the full version of World of Goo has alot more content than the full version of Crayon Physics Deluxe. However, I paid for the full version of Crayon Physics and I definitely got my $20 out of it.

World of Goo is absolutely worth $20 of fun, if by fun, you mean new ideas, places to play, clever puzzles, and a-ha moments. It has a decent story, too. I was left wanting more, but it was far and away my smartest purchase of 2008. I don't know how much $20 is worth to you, but I'm pretty thrifty these days, and having played the game, I'd have paid twice that (and not purchased some unnamed, big budget stinkers instead).