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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Indie Game Jam 2 Physics-Based Games Released 21

Posted by simoniker from the mmm-physics dept.
DaFlusha writes "Chris Hecker has posted the freely downloadable games from Indie Game Jam 2 (actually the third year, as programmers start counting from 0). When the games (from the 'yearly game design and programming event designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry') were showcased during the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC 2004, I was highly impressed and couldn't wait to play the 2D-physics-based games myself. Now everyone can try them, provided you can run a Windows executable." Oh, and any game description which starts with the phrase: "The physics engine treats the hamsters kinda like a fluid" (as 'Stunt Hamsters' does) is a friend of mine.
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Indie Game Jam 2 Physics-Based Games Released More

Indie Game Jam 2 Physics-Based Games Released

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  • Bah, all cheap imitations (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Wednesday April 28, 2004 @05:13AM (#8994398) Homepage Journal
    Now here's [jet.ro] a real real-physics game.

  • Just a Little Twisted? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 28, 2004 @07:08AM (#8994682)
    STUNT HAMSTERS

    No hamsters were harmed during the production of this game.
    Design by: Casey Muratori with Ryan Ellis

    The physics engine treats the hamsters kinda like a fluid. So you basically fire all these hamsters out of a cannon, and you pack them into different areas and then when you light them on fire, the gas that gets let out of that, displaces the fluid very violently. So you can change the structure of the level because this organic fluid explosion allows you to push blocks over and do these cool things.

  • Chris Hecker is a god! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chelloveck ( 14643 ) on Wednesday April 28, 2004 @09:20AM (#8995361)

    When I was writing video games [klov.com] for a living, Hecker's physics articles in Game Developer magazine really helped me out. He knows what he's doing when it comes to this stuff. And, at least as important, he knows how to teach others to do it too.

  • I'll have to look for whoever wrote this genius piece of work so I can thank them profusely, I've never had so much fun exploding large piles of rodent. :)

  • actually the third year, as programmers start counting from 0

    Is this true or just some lame attempt at humor? I couldn't find any mention of it being the 3rd Game Jam, so I'm assuming this was meant as a joke. Unfortunately, the reasoning is kind of crazy: programmers don't start counting from zero, they just count offsets from the beginning of a list/array because it can be more efficient (doesn't matter nowadays, but it used to). This works out well since all integer types contain 0 as a number, so a sin

    • This is the absolute truth. Check out the home page [indiegamejam.com] to read about IndieJam0 (massive sprite counts) and IndieJam1 (shadow interface).
      • Ah, thanks, I wasn't sure how to search for the zeroeth IndieJam. I still stand by my claim that programmers start counting with 1 and only start with 0 for storing offsets.
        • Okay, this ties into my sig so I guess I should say something. ;)

          In C/C++ etc, we index things from zero. So, if you had an array of 50 IndieJams (indieJam[50]) you would access the first jam like so: indieJam[0];

          So, do we start counting with 0? That isn't the point really. I guess it is all a matter of context. Is it funny? Well that depends on your humor. If you laugh at the punchline to the "Two strings walk into a bar.." joke, then the answer is yes. ;)

          • My point is that you don't start counting with 0 instead of 1, because then how would you count 0 items?

            In C/C++, you index array elements by their offset from the beginning as I stated before. There is no "counting" involved.
          • Then there is the whole is zero a natural number thing.

            Mathematicians usually say no, it is defined to not be. The reason for this definition is that zero is a special case in terms of many rules (division for example) so having it not be a natural number makes many mathematical theorems work for natural numbers that would otherwise have a special case. Mathematicians don't like special cases.

            On the other hand Computer Scientists, among others, like to say yes, as it is possible to have zero of something
  • The site appears to be slashdotted already.

    Bummer :(
  • I just beat it. It was challenging, but not so challenging that it wasn't fun.

    I'd be really interested in learning if there's a tool or simple way to make levels for it though.

    It'd probably end up with a contributing community pretty quickly if the word got around.

    • I don't know about Stunt Hamsters, but I know that many of the games support level editing. Just press "E" and you get a level editor in BootLooter, Nebulae, and a couple others.
    • How do you beat the last level? I'm stymied.
      • Here's how I did it:

        Fill the whole bottom area with a sea of flaming hamsters. Make sure they cover the peak of the "mountain" in the middle.

        Next, you job is to shoot some hamsters up towards the movable rock, so that 2-3 hamsters get clumped together and fall down to the flaming sea together.

        The last part is to aim a hamster shot so that it is shooting as high on the rock as you can without hitting the ledge over the cannon. You need to time it so that this shot is directly above the mountain peak whe

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