Gamers just want to have “Phun”

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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.

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 🙂

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10 thoughts on “Gamers just want to have “Phun””

  1. My son showed me this yesterday, I guess it just came out? It’s such a great idea! I love what you’ve done, that’s much cleverer than anything I tried 🙂

  4. “Still Alive”? Isn’t that kind of an easy song? I can play it on my DS using Jam Sessions… And the drum part is dead simple. Anyway, I have it in enough places already 🙂
    I’d like to see some Queen on Rock Band. And my son wants more tracks from the Guitar Hero games.

  5. I’d totally dig some Queen. But also I’m itching for some old Clapton, or more recent Cult… but really, though it will likely never happen, I want some Phish. There’s some great music in their catalogue that would be fun as hell to sing and play.
    Heck, there’ no limit to the amount of bands that Harmonix could pull from… I believe I’ll start writing them letters on a weekly basis begging for songs that I want to see added.

  7. Oooh, Fee, tryin’ to live a life that’s completely free…
    I saw Phish live at Laguna Seca in Monterey. They were the headliners of a festival that included Mother Hips, 4 Non Blondes, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and some other bands. I’ll remember it forever…

  8. I’m also going to beg for some Ben Folds solo work. Rockin’ the Suburbs is still in my constant rotation, several years after release, and I’m one of those people who very often gets tired of albums after repeated listenings and needs to take a break for a while… but not that one. It’s grand from the first to the last track, and I’d love nothing more than to pretend I can play guitar on some of those songs, as well as have some karaoke versions of them at home.
    One of the best shows I’ve ever seen was him and his piano at Severence Hall in Cleveland.

  9. I had a lot of fun playing with this the other night, but now, everything seems to be slowed down dramatically, even with the 2x speed setting, particularly things that fall seem to be falling incredibly slow even with gravity turned on. Any suggestions?

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