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[dustin]

So this seems to crop up in a lot in games I've done and it always kind of bothers me and I can never figure out why.

The situation is this.  You have some type of physical simulation going on in your game and you program in all the physics the way it should be and it runs fine but it's just not as much fun as when you screw with the equations.

My most recent example is this...  In my game you shoot charged particles and they are bent by stationary positive and negative charges.  At first I was like ok this is simple take their distance and use inverse square law etc.  Anyway it works fine but I find that it's a lot more fun when I just use inverse of the distance instead of the inverse square.  It makes it so that your shots don't have to be so precise and things seem to behave more how you would expect them to.

If you want a simpler example I would say the fact that mario can move after jumping is the most basic one.  It feels natural that you are able to and weird if you can't but it is more realistic to not be able to.

Do other people run into this kind of thing?  Does any one have any idea why this is the case?  It seems strange that the thing that happens in real life does not feel the most natural many times.

[Average Software]

I've always thought about it this way:  games aren't supposed to be concerned with realism.  Realism is the domain of a totally different kind of program, and they're called simulators.

The line is blurred sometimes, but the truth is that reality isn't very fun.  I get especially annoyed when I hear people wanting realistic war games, and I want to explain to them that a realistic war game would be one the most boring things you ever played, you'd spend most of your time walking guard duty and cleaning your gun.

I know this doesn't have much to do with physics, and is more of a philosophical rant, but as a closing argument, if realistic physics were fun, wouldn't we be having fun all the time just walking down the street?

[InfiniteStateMachine]

It definitely takes some time getting used to. I think it's just one of those things that the more you practice, the more you'll get used to "game physics"


Just dont work on it too much the night before a real physics test :p

[I_smell]

I recently had to make a guy able to jump about six times his own height.
That used to just be like a super-jump move, but I just cut out the middle man and made that his normal jump.
Also gravity is like double, cos it used to take him too long to float down.
And Burnout is like way better than any Gran Turismo or Forza crap, there I said it.

[BorisTheBrave]

It's like a book, right? A real story is not interesting (Joe got up, and went to work), so you examine the extremes or stretch reality. Physics in games should mean what looks like physics, rather than what is physics. As long as people accept it (i.e. it doesn't stretch disbelief too much, or it makes a point of it), you're ok.

[I_smell]

I don't think it's like books at all, but I think you're right about making something based on what people expect it to be rather than what it actually is.
Like- Punching a guy is actually not that visceral in real life, but in games and movies it's like BOOM. So if you actually made a realistic fighting game then I guess most people would find it really tame.

The other half of designing physics is that it has to fit to what you do in the game. In Devil May Cry, gravity is like 3 times faster than reality because it has to be all quick and relentless all the time. If you jumped like fuckin Cave Story, the whole game would be annoying as hell. If you actually stop and watch how he jumps in DMC, it's fuckin ludicrous.

[Falmil]

Realism in a game is basically just a flavor or seasoning for the gameplay. Its almost never a good idea to have things be completely realistic. The problem with a game not being fun when realistic is obvious: The player is playing a game, not in real life. Games have their own set of "standard" rules that are common across many different games, like being able to control your direction of movement while in mid air, or double jumping even. No one even bothers to explain that one anymore. Since games are about control and interaction, the player needs to be able to see how the world works and with relative easy produce the results they want.
In real life, most people have no idea how the world and physics actually work, mostly because they have little interaction with it. The only big example people have is driving cars in terms of velocity and acceleration. Not many people have fired any sort of gun, and even if they did, they weren't able to trace the path of the bullet since it moved so fast. So basically, a combination of previous game experiences that have a simpler system and players not being used to realistic systems makes it awkward.

[mcc]

Reality was not designed with the goal of producing entertaining 2d gameplay 

[aeiowu]

you guys don't golf?

[Mipe]

Guys, real life beach volleyball. Nuff said.

[nikki]

When real physics is not fun




sorry

[Krux]

yea thats right XD

[Mipe]

 

Uh, that's one freaky toe...

[Mikademus]

When real physics is not fun

Ooooo, cute cat!


 

[Falmil]

Doesn't look like a cat to me. Cats groom themselves better than that. I actually don't know WHAT that thing is.

[Mipe]

Dog?

[Tycho Brahe]

I think one of the causes is that people don't really belive physics is lik it is in real life anyway, ie game physics co forms more to what their idea of physics is. Case in point; if you told most people that a bullet fired directly horizontally from a gun and a bullet simply dropped would land at the same time then they wouldn't belive you. Most people would argue that one or the other would land first, as it conforms to their view of how physics works, which games pander to to an extent. 

( pander.)

[DanFessler]

I'm confused as to which toe i should be more concerned about - the purple one, or the one that seems to be folding in on itself