I saw yesterday that a Swedish researcher at Umeå University VRlab had released the latest version of “Phun”. This is software that takes anything you can draw… and animates it with real world physics. This kind of reminds me of Crayon Physics, which does the physics, but makes it into a puzzle game. Phun gives you a blank screen and your mouse. What you do then is up to you.
I got a little crazy. I wondered if I could draw one of those swinging ball toys – and I could! Next was a little hammer to start it going… and then a ten ton weight to slide a block out to trigger the hammer… and then…. well, you can see it got a little crazy toward the end.
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The darn thing is ADDICTING.
HOURS LATER, I have to tear myself away from the computer. I had this song running through my head, though, and I couldn’t rest until I found it and put it on the animation. And then a train pulling the initials of my blog. And titles.
This is a heck of a lot of fun. Kids are going to love playing around with physics, using Phun.
This is a triumph :) I also plan to get Crayon Physics Deluxe when it comes out… But didn’t they do these games back in the 80s – The Incredible Machine and Rocky’s Boots? And Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set. What goes around comes around, I guess… Download Phun (it’s free! Works on Windows and Linux!), let’s see what YOU come up with :)