The implementation of physical laws within videogames has always been the cue of the developers. In fact, it has been since the 1980s that attempts have been made to make the behavior of everything moving on the screen plausible. Lately, however, the development of physics management has made a real leap forward: first with the development of different engines and instruction sets (the most famous is the Havok engine ), and then with the production of PC cards entirely dedicated to the management of calculations related to physics (for example Ageia's Phisy'x card) and to the behavior of various types of materials present in a video game, for example the behavior of water or an object that explodes into a thousand pieces.
The race to manage physical laws in the best possible way has triggered a real tussle among PC hardware manufacturers, for example with the new Multicore CPUs it is possible to dedicate one or more nuclei to the calculation of physics, without the system slowing down perceptibly.
Nvidia, a leader in the graphics card sector, is also implementing physical chips inside them. This sudden development does not bring benefits exclusively in the field of the newest 3D games, but the physical management makes sparks in any application, especially those in 2D.
Famous examples in this sense are the (paid) video games World of goo and Crayon physics, in which you can experience anything. In the first case, huge constructions are created and the balance, weight and elasticity of the materials must be reckoned with. To finish a level of "Crayon physics" instead, we can draw on the screen any object that we think can help us, and that will come to life.
Looking at these wonders, one wonders how much work is needed to create similar applications. It's actually simpler than we think. Thanks to Phun, an open source sandbox (or development platform) for 2D physics, which allows us to create authentic masterpieces without having nobel knowledge in physics or programming languages.
Yes, because Phun comes with a very functional graphical user interface (Gui), so everything becomes possible with a little imagination and with a few mouse clicks. The name of the program itself is a clear allusion to fun, in fact the pronunciation is the same as the word fun.
I remember that the program is open source, so everyone can make every creation his own, but especially considering that the source code is freely distributed, the most savvy users can also improve the functions of the program and thus build their own customized release in all.
Once the program is installed, we can draw everything from geometric shapes to predefined objects, or do everything freehand. We will have access to any type of material, solid or liquid, the behavior of which will be absolutely plausible.
In addition, the powerful routines also allow us to manage the wind forces and the centrifugal force (G-force). I believe this is a truly important innovation in the physical field, both to simulate the behavior of materials in the fields of study, work and research, and to create impactful 2D video games.
Similar to Phun, there are many other flash games based on physics, balance and realistic movement.
These types of games should not be underestimated, because very often they seduce us and entertain us in front of the PC for much longer than the great 3D masterpieces, and all this for their immediacy, simplicity and great playability.
