GameDev.net -- Physics Contest Entries

The Results
The judges have spoken, and the winners have been determined. The winners will each receive a copy of Physics for Game Developers, courtesy of O'Reilly.

The Judging Process
There were 3 judges for this contest. Each judge reviewed all the entries, and picked their five favorites. Each entry selected as a favorite received 2 points. In addition, each judge was allowed to award an additional point to any entries which they felt were significantly better than the bulk of the entries. This was done to help ensure that outstanding entries made it to the final cut. Once the judging was complete, the scores were total, and the five highest-scoring entries were selected as the winners.

The primary criteria used by the judges in evaluating entries was how well they implemented physics, including how "real" the physics looked, the laws of physics modeled, etc. Other factors, such as polish and visual quality, were given secondary consideration.

The Winners

Name	Entry Title	Download	Score	Comments
Peter Hirschberg	VertiSim	[Download]	8	Pros: Judge1: Everything very realistic, all the laws of physics hold, runs at a decent speed Judge2: One of the best demos in the group. Very real looking, and very polished. Cons: Judge1: Too hard to hook stuff. And there were no cursed mermaids to pick up >_< ! Judge2: Sometimes ran like a dog.
Brian Collins	Rigid Body Physics	[Download]	6	Pros: Judge1: The physics are VERY realistic, everything nice and smooth. Judge2: Very realistic. Nice range of options. Cons:
Dimitrios Christopoulos	Magic Room II	[Download]	4	Pros: Judge1: What's more fun that blowing up balls? Judge2: Hooking the camera was a really nice touch. Cons: Judge1: Initial speed too slow. Can't really see my projectiles. Managed to crash it Judge2: Pretty basic physics.
George Ziniewicz	PhysicZ	[Download]	4	Pros: Judge1: Features almost all of the physics that you would need for a complete game! Judge2: I'm impressed with how much there is in this. Great attention to detail. Cons: Judge1: A bit confusing. Judge2: Hard to control. Kept doing unexpected things.
Muschick Christian	Bounce	[Download]	3	Pros: Judge2: Very good looking ball physics. Liked that the ball parameters could be edited. Particle dust cloods were a nice touch. Cons: Judge1: Didn't run. Probably doesn't like ATI cards >_<

The Others

Name	Entry Title	Download	Score	Comments
Duncan Burch	Cloth Simulation	[Download]	2	Pros: Judge1: It looks like a real fabric! Most of the times... Judge2: Cloth movement very accurate. Cons: Judge1: The ball's movement is limited. Judge2: If the ball is positioned in the middle of the cloth, and the cloth is released, it ends up turning into a random mess of triangles.
Daniele Paccaloni	JELLYMARK	[Download]	2	Pros: Judge1: I like the way the elasticity of the moon face is implemented. Judge2: One of the more originally entries. The motion is very realistic. Cons: Judge1: A bit slow, but possible. Some extra control would have been nice.
Adam Moravanszky	Corpus Demo	[Download]	2	Pros: Judge1: Awesome physics! Especially the last scene with ruler and the disk. Judge2: Very well done. Looked good and ran smoothly. Cons: Judge1: Friction a bit unrealiztic in some cases. Judge2: The way objects landed and slid sometimes looked a little "off"
Chris Hegarty	Newton's Fountains	[Download]	2	Pros: Judge1: Lots of eye candy, good demonstration of gravity. I would love this as screen saver Judge2: Both the fountains and the collision response looked accurate. Cons: Judge1: Only simple laws of physics are implemented. Judge2: Nothing terribly complicated, physics-wise.
Fuzzware2002	AquaDemo	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: The refraction of light when there is a wave in the water is very nice. Judge2: The water itself looked very good (light refraction, and "normal" motion" Cons: Judge1: Gravity is done poorly (constant speed instead of accelerating) Judge2: The response of the water when a drop hit it didn't look right.
Zachary Tellman	Balloon	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: The balloon movements look very realistic. Judge2: The way the strings moved was very convincing, and the clouds looked good too. Cons: Judge1: I was not able to see the promised clouds in the demo. Judge2: Some of the strings eventually became very long. Was that intentional?
Daniel Ostrander, Xero-X2, with Mickel Votaw	Energy Grid	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: The movement and collisions are pretty good. Judge2: Fairly well polished demo. Cons: Judge1: Only uses simple laws of physics, not as complicated as some other entries. Judge2: For a game, way too hard to control; in this case, the physics are a deterrant
Matthew Boelter	Scorched Earth	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: The terrain looked good. Judge2: Terrain deformation was nice. Cons: Judge1: Kind of impossible to play, the only way to hit something is to shoot directly upwards. Thanks God the gravity is implemented.
Andrew Mentges	Java Tank Game	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: Pretty addictive game Judge2: Nice to have an actual game, especially one done in Java. Cons: Judge1: Didn't have much physics in, except perhaps the gravity on "barrels" and also didn't run with Sun's java plugin. Had to run it with M$'s plugin Judge2: Really basic physics. They worked well enough, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Shady El Mously	Marble balls simulator	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: I always loved playing with those balls ^_^ Judge2: Reminded me of a Beavis and Butthead episode ("ow, ow, ow, ow") Cons: Judge1: Reminds me of my grandmother's clock >:\| Judge2: Didn't really look real (in the real ones I've seen, the middle balls move slightly)
Dan Hoeflinger	Physics Demo	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: Well, it works ^_^ Judge2: The bouncing looked fairly accurate. Cons: Judge1: Too simple. The ball spin and the friction are not very realistic. Judge2: The way the ball slid and spun were a bit off.
David Mayerich	Boid Tank	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: Umm, interesting? Judge2: The water looked pretty good. I liked the way the fountain affected the water and boids. Cons: Judge1: Can't see much physics. The fountain looks like a christmass tree. Judge2: The fountain didn't really look like a fountain.
Sean Wilson	Sandbox	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: Good demonstration of mass/spring/gravity/friction physics. Judge2: Good use of a variety of physics. Cons: Judge1: It would have been more interesting if it was in 3D.
Brian Wade	SubAtomic	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: It makes a very beautiful effect if you add the number of particles and restart Judge2: Makes for interesting patterns. Cons: Judge1: Well, the electromagnetism is very fake.
Kroxigor	Terrell effect	[Download]	0	Pros: Judge1: Some of the effects, especially dopler, are done very nice. Judge2: One of the most original demos, at least as far as the choice of physics to model. All of it looked quite good. Cons: Judge1: Not very related to games.. Sometimes crashes when I click on options.