I was pointed in the direction of a fun little physics game called Fantastic Contraption earlier (thanks Naseer). It’s pretty reminiscent of other sand box physics games, most notably Soda Constructor. It may not be the most original game but it is well executed and introduces goal based play through some nice level design. The catch being that you have to pay $10 to make levels or play the levels of others. Not allowing users to generate or share content seems like a strange business model, especially considering the established communities of other similar free games. The 20 free levels are definitely worth a look though.

UPDATE: There are some really nice videos on YouTube showing the variety and imagination of peoples solutions to the same levels.

There’s a new craze in Town, well the playground anyway. GoGo’s Crazy Bones are part toy, part game and even part sticker collection. If you are lucky enough to find any for sale there are 3 plastic figures and 3 stickers in a 99p pack. The style of the figures borrows from that of vinyl toys. The main game borrows heavily from Schweinerei, aka ‘Pass the Pigs’ in that scoring is based on the positions figures land in. When playing there is the fight inducing option of the winner keeping one of the losers figures if they decided to gamble battle. Some schools have of course already banned them. A move which will have set the cava corks popping at Magic Box International HQ.

I managed to get hold of a couple of packs, the last two in the shop. I’m guessing from my meagre haul that yellow and blue are two of the more common colours.

Jonathan Blow has made a pacifistic take on Flywrench called Nicewrench. Asking the question “what happens if you take a game that is about mercilessly killing the player, and remove the possibility for player death?”. Not much obviously, but I don’t think that’s what Flywrench is about. Yes you will die repeatedly on some levels but what Flywrench does really well for me is remove the tedium that usually succeeds death is games. You respawn almost instantly and you’re playing again. Making death binary and removing any grey areas such as health, damage or powerups is for me what allows for the challenging level design. Flywrench is one of the best single player games I’ve played in some time. It looks and sounds great too so if you haven’t already played it I strongly suggest you do. Ignore anyone who tries to tell you that it’s too hard, including yourself.

In game death and difficulty are popular subjects for indie and art games at the moment. Passage and YouHaveToBurnTheRope are two recent examples. By the way if you get stuck burning the rope there are walkthroughs here and here. You’d have to go a long way to better Basho’s Frogger by Neil Hennsessy though. Let’s get pataphysical.

Nicewrench via indiegames

Tuomo is running a Pixelache summer school in Kemiö on the 7-8^th August. Sadly I can’t make it but if you can I recommend you do. A top opportunity to learn stuff while having a great time. It was a bit colder when I was there but still very beautiful. I bet Kemiö in summer is a nice place to be.

It’s been threatened several time before but now it has actually happened. I have a website. For those who don’t know me and have landed here by accident I design, make and play games. So I guess that will account for a large percentage of posts. Also belatedly I’ve finally uploaded some photos to Flickr. There should be a random selection to the left and here is a link to all my photos. Here is a photo of Lisa in Spain struggling to access her email.