4th Casual Gameplay Design Competition - entries unveiled!

Entry time is over and playtime has begun! Jay will be posting a new entry every few hours or so, so start playing and thinking about how you're going to distribute your votes. For anyone new to JayIsGames.com or the competition, basically, Jayisgames puts out a call for entries with a theme for game designers to integrate into their game - this time around, it's "ball physics". It's up to the designer how they do this, and following the theme slavishly won't guarantee them a prize. Aside from the main prizes, this year sponsored by Sierra Online, ArcadeTown, ArmorGames and FreeworldGroup, the real excitement for mine is the Audience Prize, which is composed of donations by JayIsGames readers. (That would be you.)

So far, I'm liking:

Roll

Starts off annoyingly easy - quickly becomes annoyingly hard. Nice, clean, Nitrome-style graphics.

Factory Balls

ZOMG! A Bart Bonte game I don't hate!

Day of the Bobteds

By the eeeeeeeeevil genius who brought you Hapland, an elegant little game with polished graphics that might disappoint Hapland fans (you may be comforted to know that they look a bit Ferry Halim, so all is not lost).

Kaichou

Bless you! No major strategy or effort here, just shoot black balls to turn them into pretty flowers.

Mr. Mothball

From the artistic vision that brought you Submachine and Daymare Town, the virtue of this game lies not so much in the motion physics as the sound. Jump on the blocks (what do you think they are made of?) and listen to the noise it makes.

Brownie Motion

Amateurish graphics and a gameplay so simple you can feel your brain getting smaller as you play, yet weirdly compelling. If lopsidation can just team up with an artist and/or musician to make the interface just a tiny bit less crap, we could be onto a winner.

For my money, the winner so far is:

Angular Momentum

It's easy to learn, quite polished in its presentation, addictive and fun. A few physics nerds over at Jayisgames have complained that the movement is inaccurate, but I don't think that interferes with the enjoyment of the game itself.