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.