Babel

Babel is a tower-building activity...

Description and background

Babel is a simple physics game based on building as tall a tower as possible in 60 seconds, and then bashing that tower apart as quickly as possible. It is based on the engine of the "phsics" activity. It is meant to be mildly educational, but also as a study in the joy of slinging bricks and wrecking balls.

The player is given a small selection of bricks for stacking.

Using the wrecking ball is optional, but fun.

The score is based on how high the tower was divided by how long it took to destroy.

Once the game is done, press Restart to try again.

Screenshots and design images

Martha worked on these as designs for a future edition!

intro storyboards 1-5 for a future Babel + Kings game

intro storyboards 6 & 7

intro storyboards 7-9

Development

The game was a result of the 2008 OLPC Physics Game Jam. Originally envisioned as a 2 player game, with slingshots to fling rocks at the other player's tower, the end result was simplified because of lack of time, lack of Python and engine experience, and technical constraints.

Team

The team was "Cowsome Loneboys"

Kirk "kirkjerk" Israel

Jon Beilin

Bobby Powers

Martha Wexler

Todo List

The method of figuring out if the tower is destroyed is not what it should be... currently it makes sure bricks are all below and/or to the side of the tower, because the method to see if bricks were pressing it tended to blow things up.

Also, you can probably cheat by just hanging a brick over the tower. That should be fixed.