Crayon Physics

http://www.crayonphysics.com/

Pay what you want offer until 1/15.
The game is well worth a look.

Wow. This game is SUCH a rip-off of a FREE game another indie developer created a year ago (the name of their group currently escapes me). To think the creators of this game won the Indie Game of the Year award for themselves is sickening. >_<

...Unless of course they're the same people, in which case I'm an idiot.

Good deal

and how! its a rip-off. not worth playing

It's fun for a while, and not a rip-off when you choose how much you pay.

Jibb

You should investigate a bit before making such a statement that actually damages the image of the creators even if the free version is their own creation, too.
I played the free version too, and it looked so similar to - not to say identical - to this that I fairly daught, that the team of the free version is a different one.

To say, something is a rip-off is not a harmless accusation, unless you can prove it.

Well, I suppose you're right Pappenheimer, so I'll start at the beginning.

This is the official website of the free game:
http://complex.ovh.org/

And this is the official website of Crayon Physics:
http://www.crayonphysics.com/

The free game was called PhysicDraw and it was made a good year or so ago, long before the team that created Crayon Physics ever started work on this project. Sure, Crayon Physics is a little more refined and it has an actual goal, but the actual premise is almost a complete rip-off of this free game.

The creator of PhysicDraw is named Flavien Clermont, and his personal website can be found at:
http://flavien.clermont.free.fr/

The creator of Crayon Physics refers to himself as Petri Purho, also taken from his website:
http://www.crayonphysics.com/

I think I can safely assume that these guys are not the same people.

You're right that PhysicDraw came first, but you need to be careful with your claims. A "good year or so ago" was actually when Crayon Physics was finally released, not "long before the team ... ever started work on this project".

Crayon Physics was first shown on these forums a very long time ago, and Firoball's announcement was that we get a good deal on it for a while

Jibb

I'm still not convinced:
Both are from 2008, the 'free game' is a demonstration of an engine, not a game.
The physics deluxe is a game with levels and goals.
They still _can_ have developed it independently of each other, or the latter bought the engine from the first.

Crayon Physics uses the open source Box2D physics engine.

There are so many physics drawing games that it is hard to say which came first. For example there also was one by Microsoft 2 or 3 years ago. It doesn't really matter in my opinion. Once there were nice 2D physics engines like Chipmunk and Box2D such games started to emerge.

It just doesn't seem right to me for the developer(s) of crayon physics to receive an IGOTY award when their game is nothing new, nothing special, and nothing really interesting. I saw the video of the game on their website, it's not like they did anything revolutionary with the concept of "use physics and drawing to solve the puzzle!". If it was the first of its kind, then I can imagine it winning an award or two, or at least the respect of many players/developers. Otherwise, the only thing I see here is one of the first commercialized versions of a physics drawing game.

I suppose this is just boiling down to my personal opinion, but I'm sure there were better nominees that deserved the title of IGOTY.

This is what I found so far:

http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/general/wanted-constructive-criticism

This means th3e first prototype of crayon physics is from Friday, June 1st, 2007, means about 2,5 years ago.

On the page of http://complex.ovh.org/ I found only this date, but this doesn't mean that he couldn't have published it earlier:
"PhysicDraw (Download: Mirror1 - Mirror2) - Last release: 03/16/08"

I suppose 03/16/08 means 1,75 years ago, but it is possible that he produced this engine/game earlier.

++++

Found this site with the names of both developers:

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/sitemap/developers/

Here there profiles:

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/user/Sphax/

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/user/Petri%20Purho/

Sadly, these pages don't shad any light on whether who developed first.

(Petri Purho has a video in his profile which looks like quite some fun. I like its sort of mechanic and graphics.)

so let me get this straight, because you use the same genre of game that makes you a thief? maybe the wonderful end of the world by dejobaan games should have never been made then right? or maybe mario should be considered the only platform game that was original. Is every free roam game a GTA knockoff, or skate game a THPS knockoff? maybe WOW should owe everquest royalties for being a fantasy based MMORPG.............

Wow some people are just plain dumb, huh?

Crayon Physics was first. The developer, Petri, is a guy who used to run a blog about make-a-game-a-week, and was experimenting with all sorts of ideas, coming up with great concepts for games every week. On June 1st, 2007 he made Crayon Physics and posted it on his blog here:

http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon

Due to the great response for his game, he decided to improve it which resulted in Crayon Physics Deluxe a year later. He started selling his game for 10-15 bucks, but I guess sales weren't that good which pushed him into the "pay what you want" offer.

That other game is made with MMF2 and came between Crayon Physics and Crayon Physics Deluxe. I'm guessing it was Crayon Physics that influenced the MMF2 developer to make his game (which is why he's not complaining about any of that himself)

Btw, interestingly, even though CP had great potential, somehow the full game didn't amaze me as much as I expected it to. It was still worth every penny (when it actually had a price) but I enjoyed Armadillo Run infinitely more (another great physics puzzle game. Give it a try..)

Nope, I don't care if anybody develops a game that's essentially a knock-off of another game. At the time it just bugged me how this guy had won such an award, when it seemed to me that his game was almost exactly the same as PhysicDraw.

But since nobody really knows for sure who came up with the idea first (and it seems that Petri came up with it on his own), the issue here is resolved. Sorry for the trouble.

now that makes a bit more sense.