#physics puzzles

[steamgameaday]

Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers (2012)

Genre: Puzzle Platformer Developer: Black Pants Game Studio Price: £6.99

Pants. Was that funny? Because the guys at Black Pants Game Studio are so convinced that the very idea of Y-front underwear is so absolutely hilarious that they not only named their game studio after them, but also have them as the central macguffin of their first commercial PC game, Tiny and Big: Grandpa's leftovers. In it, you play as a technophile geek called Tiny, chasing down Big, the dastardly villain who stole the pair of pants you inherited from your beloved late grandfather. Also he wears them on his head. And they give him psychokinetic powers. Laughing yet? No? Okay.

Luckily, despite the patently absurdist and childish humour, the gameplay translates a lot better than the childrens'-book-like premise. Tiny and Big is a 3D puzzle platformer with (wait for it!) physics puzzles. Luckily, unlike the vast majority of Puzzle Platformers, Tiny and Big uses it's physics engine based powers for large-scale wanton destruction rather than tedious, tedious creation.

Tiny, being the technophile that he is, is armed with three tools: a grappling hook with which he can drag objects around, a rocket that attaches to objects and then powerfully propels them in that direction, and, most tantalisingly, a laser gun that can be used to slice objects up into smaller, more manageable pieces. Together these three tools make a formidable and intuitive arsenal, giving players decent reign to slash, burst and pull their way through any obstacle Tiny faces in his chase. Generally it is the player's task to work out the simplest method of forming a path along Tiny and Big's massive environments, whether this involves slashing straight through massive boulders, creating walkways by pulling over pillars or cutting things into ramps, there's always the feeling that you're being a bit clever with your manipulations. And when you're not, dying will snap you back to a recent checkpoint (of which there seem to be plenty) with all of the landscape back to how it was, allowing you the leniency of trial and error.

Tiny and Big’s presentation is unique. The combination of cel-shading and scribbled, hand-drawn textures makes for a visually interesting combination. Whilst the game’s colours are somewhat muted, dealing mostly in shades of black, brown and blue, it’s an eye catching and well-defined style that focuses on both a very tight artistic style and a very conscious use of contrast. Keeping with the package's comic book aesthetic, sound effects are accompanied with an onscreen onomatopoeia and characters talk in speech bubbles. Whilst the translation of the speech could certainly be a little more naturalistic, the game comes out especially strong from an artistic point of view.

This rather eclectic style is paired up with a similarly eclectic selection of indie tunes, unlocked through the collection of cassette tapes scattered across the game’s levels. Whilst they don’t always necessarily match the game’s mood, they do match it’s rather off-kilter style, and they make for a pretty good selection of tracks.

As the plot gradually moves on and the extent of the game's underpants obsession sinks in, it becomes apparent that under the thin layer of dadaist humour lies a surprisingly witty and charming game. The weird little plot actually makes sense (which is more than can be said for a lot of big budget titles) and even Big becomes likable in his villainous way. It really grows on you far quicker than you would expect. In fact, the only real criticism I can come up with about Tiny and Big is that it's so damn short. Sporting only a handful of well-designed levels and lasting for just shy of two and a half hours, Tiny and Big is just not quite enough of a great thing. Which is really saying something considering how much I usually loathe physics-based puzzle platformers.

Also, I have to admit. The twist at the end is funny.

How long did I play? - 2.5 hours Did I finish it? - Yes Would I play it again? - Yes

[steamgameaday]

Crazy Machines: Elements

Genre: Puzzle Developer: FAKT Software Price: £7.99

Blatantly based upon the 'The Incredible Machine' games, CM:E takes the core premise of building Rube Goldberg machines; machines made of intricate sequences of newtonian cause and effect built out of unusual parts, and updates it to work on modern hardware. Each stage has it's own objective, and a weird mix of devices, household objects and other bits and pieces must be correctly sequenced in order for that objective to be completed.

The physics engine is impressively realistic. I was initially shocked by the tight, weighty nature of the game's gravity which makes most games seem floaty by comparison. Thankfully, unlike the similarly designed but massively inferior 'Bad Rats', the physics are also consistent, with each setup producing the exact same results in repeated tests.

Impressive too are the additions of 'elements' such as fire or electricity to the play. Items can be burned through or conduct electricity, and are affected by wind or steam. Whilst it's not something that's constantly in play, it does add a little variety to the proceedings and makes for some interesting puzzles.

But the whole thing feels... plastic. It's a solid product, but it's presentation is lousy. The soundtrack is entirely inoffensive and forgettable, the graphics, whilst colourful, are mostly modernist and void of any real artistic expression, and the whole thing is fronted by a crazy haired mad scientist who simply smiles and waves and does very little else. This mascot has no context, no character, not even a name; he's just there, appearing in the menus and on the puzzle solved screens. I know that not all games have to be art, but it has the same kind of cheap feel to it as shovelware.

Crazy Machines: Elements is an excellent collection of challenging puzzles built around a surprisingly realistic and functional physics engine, but not even it's addition of elemental features can distract from it's lacklustre and soulless presentation. It's an okay game, but it neither does anything to advance on 20 year old ideas, nor looks or sounds good whilst doing it.

How long did I play? - 1.4 hours Did I finish it? - No Would I finish it? - No

[steamgameaday]

Bad Rats: The Rats' Revenge (2009)

Developer: Invent4 Genre: Puzzle Price: £3.49

COURT: Bad Rats, you stand here accused and tried for the following crimes;

1. That despite your status as a physics puzzler in the vein of 'The Incredible Machine', you provide a physics engine that is loose and unpredictable. Whilst it was Albert Einstein, the father of our modern understanding of physics who said that Insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", you have provided the player with a physics system so unstable that sometimes the correct answer to a puzzle will only work after repeated re-activations of the 'play' button.

2. That you have the graphical appearance of a piece of high school 3DMax coursework, utilising a series of mostly identical low-polygon characters that follow slow, deliberate looking animations. That placing these awkward and unfortunate creatures onto the garishly decorated faux 'urban' levels is itself a chore due to the poor clipping rules between these creatures and the similarly low-poly environment that they fit onto. That, when these characters are affected by the game's physics, they topple like objects rather than living creatures, reacting with poor, jumpy, incomplete looking animations.

3. That you provide the player with a choice of either practically completing the game for them, or providing them with so little instruction that they cannot understand how the game works. That on multiple occasions you make no attempt to impart important details (such as how to flip or rotate a object or rat, or that some rats have a timer function) to the player outside of the help booklet. That you feel so unconfident that the player is capable of figuring out your puzzles, that your easy mode defaults to have instructions for completing each level superimposed onto the play area. That thanks to the fact that easy mode limits the player's tools to a select few whilst hard mode gives players access to the complete Bad Rats arsenal, Hard mode is rendered easier than easy mode when the instruction overlay is switched off.

4. That those instructions that are actually present in the game are often difficult or even impossible to parse thanks to a sub-par translation job. That you provide the player with tips like "The canon (sic) needs a good shot with angle and timer" or "Lung needs some timer to make a good job and all can be a question of right position". That this lack of skill in translation is rendered throughout the entire game, including the aforementioned help booklet.

5. That the game's audio consists in it's entirety of a small number of mildly annoying repeated stock music tracks that have little to no relation to the game whatsoever, a small pool of heavily used sound effects, and a short tutorial blatantly recorded in amateur conditions by one of the dev team.

And most egregiously, 6. That you think that you are funny, despite all the evidence, and act in an unbefitting manner because of this. That you believe that your cartoonishly awfully animated feline deaths are so brilliant that the player would see them as a satisfying reward for the completion of a level. That you think that dressing up cartoon rats in a series of silly hats constitutes good enough humour that no further effort on your part need be made to entertain or diversify. That you are so incredibly unfunny that you provide the player with not one, but two horrendously unfunny and racist Muslim stereotype suicide bombers (of the kind most famously seen in right-wing Danish newspapers or Jeff Dunham sketches) one of which literally gets down on it's knees and prays to Allah periodically.

Mr. Foreman, have the ladies and gentlemen of the Jury agreed upon a verdict?

FOREMAN: Yes, your Honor, we have. We unanimously find the defendant guilty of all charges. All of them. Every single one. I mean seriously how did this terrible piece of half-baked shovelware find it's way onto Steam in the fir-

COURT: Yes, yes, Mr. Foreman. We get the idea, that is enough. Bad Rats, you have been found guilty of all charges brought by this court, and it is now my duty to pass sentence. Whilst you are neither the first nor certainly the last piece of half-baked badly-built nonsense to find it's way into my Steam collection, you are the most outrageous of your kind and therefore we feel constrained to commit you to the maximum penalty allowed for these offenses. You shall be taken to the place from whence you came, and from there be taken to a place of uninstallation. You shall be removed from the hard drive until the data is gone, and thereafter your title shall be left grey in the Steam Library list. May the lord have mercy upon your digital soul.

How long did I play? - 1.8 hours  Did I finish it? - No Would I finish it? - No