The freedom to do awful, perverse things that’re not at all in the spirit of the game can, in fact, yield fantastic results. Yes, it lets Joe Average bludgeon his way through with some misshapen W. Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg mess of a contraption that’s always within a pixel of failure. But it also lets ingenious people – including Joe Averages who’ve had their whole problem-solving paradigm, man, revolutionised by their first real contact with a computer-created physical world – create really, really brilliant, and also _funny_, solutions to problems.

Look at Bridge Builder/Pontifex, for instance. The more difficult chasms in those games can be crossed with a well-engineered bridge that looks as if it might exist in the real world. Or they can be crossed with horrific, lurching abominations that start out in an impossible-to-engineer unbalanced state, pivot vastly like the Eiffel Tower stood on its nose, deteriorate visibly while they do the job of letting the train pass one way and then the other (or whatever), and two seconds later collapse utterly.

It’s usually easier (but _only_ usually easier – q.v. the Obfuscated C Code Contest) to create that sort of bridge than to create a “proper” one. But I contend that the mental exercise involved – and the entertainment gained – may be every bit as good.

I love this game. I don’t know from physics and I can’t draw but I love the open boundaries here, the multiple solutions. I will play it many times and I intend to buy it for my smart, introverted 11-year-old nephew.

I’m stuck on the middle levels of Crayon. But it’s okay to be stuck. I just click in, try a few things, they don’t work, I try again. (FYI, geeks, I am also playing Portal and I’m stuck on Level 15 there.)

I would love to see videos of various “solutions” on hard levels if anyone knows where I can locate a few.

Beginning with the bad: the first instance of deluxe popped up overnight on one of the private trackers, but no where else (so far). It is build 51 and the person who upped it said they bought it just to do so, but then told everyone they should buy it. It is not a proper scene release, but only a p2p. This is actually sooner than it took Goo to pop up.
-One interesting note – Neither of them got upped to the tubes until AFTER the game went wide. None of the early purchasers/pre-orders seemed to leak either game.

Good News – There’s a demo that just got finished! I’d link to it, but I can’t get to the message post from my current location. He posted the link on the forums, but I don’t see it on the front page yet. Haven’t tried it yet though. I wonder what impact it might have on the inevitable movement to larger/public trackers and other various and sundry methods of distribution of 0s and 1s.

Please don’t shoot the courier. I’m just relaying information.

In a post on the Crayon Physics forum on 13 December 2008, Petri said:

“I’d love to as many digital distribution services as it’s humanly possible. Impulse seems really nice and I love Stardock so I’d like to see the game there.

But please understand, that these things aren’t always that simple. You can’t just upload software to these services, you have to sign contracts and there are negotiations, lawyers, agents, business people, accountants, etc…

So as much I’d love to do these different services, it’s not always that simple. “

Which, I believe is the same guy…

Sorry for doublepost.

The music is excellent.

Yes, but does it ever change?

I really wanted one for playing RTS’s and other games surely it cant cost too much in the world where ds exist.