Petri Purho

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Petri Purho
Born 1983
Kouvola, Finland
Occupation Student

Petri Purho (born 1983 in Kouvola, Finland [1]) is a Finnish computing science student and rapid game prototyper. He has worked at Finnish independent game studio Frozenbyte. In September 2006, he made a promise to himself, that he "will create a new game every month"[2] based on the experimental gameplay development model. This effort eventually ended in the creation of Crayon Physics Deluxe, which was nominated for the Seumas McNally grand prize from the Independent Games Festival in December 2007 [3] and subsequently won this category at the 2008 IGF Awards on February 20th. Many of his games are developed for various competitions such as Assembly.

Contents

[edit] Games

Almost all of Petri Purho's games are created within one week as a project exploring the idea of massive prototyping. Most common element of all games are various bonuses for successful combos and/or chain reactions. His games are created using many open-source technologies (for example SDL library or Box2D physics engine) and XML configuration files. Thanks to this, many players created various mods, replacing graphics and even adding new levels or music.

[edit] Pluto Strikes Back

Screenshot from the game Pluto Strikes Back
Screenshot from the game Pluto Strikes Back

In this game player is in control of planet Pluto, which has attached a big baseball bat to itself. In order to score points, player must hit the meteors so that they will cause damage to other planets in solar system.

[edit] The Amazing Flying Brothers

The Amazing Flying Brothers is game that is controlled only by one button. Player is controlling a circus artist, who is performing flying trapeze acts. Goal of the game is to chain various circus tricks on two moving trapezes to get bonus points.

[edit] A Tribute to the Rolling Boulder

In a direct flipside of movies like Indiana Jones, the main protagonist of this game is the rolling boulder, whose mission is to protect two golden statues representing idols of fertility. In order to do so, player must roll over increasing amount of archeologists, as they try to humiliate these idols by touching them, decreasing the player's honor meter. This game was created for assembly demo party game competition, where it won the fourth place[4].

[edit] Crayon Physics

Main article: Crayon Physics
Screenshot from the game Crayon Physics
Screenshot from the game Crayon Physics

Crayon Physics is probably Petri Purho's most popular game. It was Purho's tenth rapid game prototype and was coded in five days.[5] It is a slow-paced puzzle game based on rigid bodies physics. The main objective of every level is to collect a star with a red ball. The player is only allowed to create solid boxes, from which he must construct a path for the ball. To create a box, a player must draw either a diagonal line or 2 adjacent sides with a mouse.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Interview about crayon physics
  2. ^ Post on Petri Purho's blog
  3. ^ IGF finalists at TIGSource
  4. ^ Assembly 2007 gamedev compo results
  5. ^ Chris Baker (2008-03-19). Crayon Physics Deluxe, an ingenious video game that looks like it was designed by a third-grader 2. Slate. Retrieved on 2008-03-20.

[edit] External Links

[edit] Interviews