Re: [Algorithms] Passing on: PhD student looking for interviews ongamephysics

[Danny K. <dr...@we...>]

Not wanting to get into a philosophical debate as this is not the forum for
it, but just a quick response:

> Realistic physics is sucky. Things pinging off to infinity, bug databases
> full of unreproducible problems, framerate aliasing all over the place,
> frustrated players. Not to mention the fact that you're
> interacting with the
> world with a 10-foot barge pole - if you're lucky you get to
> stick a magnet
> on the end. Whereas in the real world we have hands and opposable
> thumbs and
> awesome motor-feedback systems. Realistic physics gets you Trespasser :-(
>
> What you want is *plausible* physics. Every game I know that has physics
> that are considered good by game players started with a realistic physics
> system and them mercilessly hacked it until it felt fun. That's not to say
> the physics is *simple* - it is in fact far more complex than the
> real world
> because it has all these special cases in it making the game fun.

I completely agree (and said as much to him). Reslistic physics never seems
to be used to add to the gameplay; it's just a way to get things to blow up
/ burn / collapse more realistically. The only game I can think of where
real physics is integral to the gameplay is Worms.

He is particularly interested in whether using realistic physics could have
some educational value - but as I pointed out, we're surrounded by real
physics all the time and it doesn't teach us anything. If anything,
simplified physics can make key educational points much better - think how
much you can learn about inertia by playing Asteroids.

Danny