This week’s Eets Weekly is actually written by your resident artist, programmer and producer: BigFoot!
I’d like to talk a little about the curse and blessing of our Pixel Perfect Physics Engine. As you may know, our physics engine is the product of some amount of research, and is basically a “it just works!” kind of engine, where you can stuff any image and it’ll react properly inside Eets.
This made it possible for us to make all these wacky creatures and have them all behave nicely with each other, and allows players to create their own ways of using items, such as bouncing off Marshomechs. It also made us able to change the scenery on the fly via explosives, and still have everything behave properly! That’s no easy task. But being pixel perfect does causes some pretty funny side-effects. For example:
Moving items just a little could have pretty big ramifications to your puzzle! Actually, in most puzzles (and certainly every level within the game), this isn’t an issue when solving it the intended way. But often the unexpected, Ninja Skillz solution of beating a level requires precise placement of items and uncanny reflexes while using them!
So, is this a good thing? Let me ask you, what’s the funniest, weirdest thing you’ve seen happen in Eets as a result of this “Pixel Perfect”ness? I expect to hear stories about Eets teleporting, buds rolling under platforms, and other insaneness. Hey, I may even give a prize to the best one if there are enough responses 
See you all next week and remember. . . “How many items does it take YOU?” 
That’s what I love about eets. Even after you think you know a level through and through there may be even an easier way of finishing it. I was trying to figure out how to ninja Whale Ninjitsu and I came up with a teleporting eets. No real spoilers in the vid, but it’s a little neat to watch!
http://www.grubeater.com/eets.wmv
Comment by grub — May 8, 2006 @ 8:49 pm
A blond guy with long hair playing Eets. He sits by his green table positioned in the corner of his room and is looking for crazy solutions. I kind off recognise myself in this guy
Where do you want us to post strange pixel experiences Jamie?
Comment by David — May 9, 2006 @ 10:12 am
Hehehe… you’re sharp, David
I had some fun drawing that!
Just post your pixel experiences right here! Describing them will be just fine
Comment by BigFoot — May 9, 2006 @ 11:02 am
Ok then! One of the strangest pixel experiences I’ve had was in Marshmallow Filter in Smoreland. I knew where I wanted the pre-placed angry bud, but I couldn’t see any way to get it there. Then all of a sudden I found the magical pixel. By placing a tilted Marshmallow a little to the left and a good deal above the angry bud I managed to get the Marshmallow to fling away the angry bud above it’s metaphorical shoulder (way to the left). Some kind of really strange friction. That was what I needed to get my Young Grasshopper:)
Comment by David — May 9, 2006 @ 11:46 am
Grub… the first time I saw that video, my eyes bugged.
It’s, uh, *supposed* to do that!
As for David — so *that’s* how you Grasshoppered Marshmallow Filter! Tricksies, you are
Comment by BigFoot — May 9, 2006 @ 4:21 pm
Oh, by the way… You can’t rotate buds… right?
Comment by David — May 10, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
You can’t , but while we were developing Eets, you could rotate the buds, but while testing many people were confused with that so we removed it for the final game…
Comment by CheesyRamen — May 10, 2006 @ 4:50 pm
Oops! Guess I made a slight mistake on my comic. Nice catch
Comment by BigFoot — May 10, 2006 @ 7:29 pm
You could easily fix the comic by enabling bud rotating in the game
I think the “pixel perfect physics” really add a lot to the long term value of the game — it takes a level that can be solved in a few minutes and makes it worth hours (literally) of tweaking a pixel at a time attempting to adjust the trajectory of this or that by just a little . . . one less piece that has to be used, that one piece worth hours and hours . . . and hours . . . –All to break the heart of the level creator who really just wanted you to see how cool their intended solution was!
And since physics are smarter than me, all that tweaking is largely “What if?” rather than “This should do it” — crazy things happen, some times. Like in “Alien Behavior” — I devised a solution that left me with some 5 pieces remaining. I could reproduce it again and again . . . but the trick was, Eets disappeared when colliding with a hole just slightly too small for his big head and he reappeared on the other side (and some over) to grab the puzzle piece. Never mind molecular deconstruction, I’m all about the pixtacular teleportation.
Comment by Allen — May 11, 2006 @ 7:25 am
Throughout the development of Eets, we had tons of friends come in to playtest our game. Invariably, all they’d try to do is “break” CheesyRamen’s levels…
Good thing, too! Some of his original designs had ways to beat it that required you to do absolutely nothing
Literally, there was this super-complex solution, but if you just let Eets go, Eets would trip and fall all the way to the goal.
Classic.
Comment by BigFoot — May 11, 2006 @ 9:53 am
Hmm… You can actually rotate alien buds, the logic here seems a bit odd. Is this intended?
Comment by David — May 11, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Oops, right, forgot about that! I suppose I should clarify it a bit.
You can rotate buds while inside the puzzle maker (for doing whatever or making things look pretty), but while playing the game you can’t rotate them, since we’ve had people who’ve played the game wonder, “Why can I rotate buds?”
Perhaps in the future we should allow buds to be rotatable whether they are playing the game or in the Puzzle Maker…
Comment by CheesyRamen — May 11, 2006 @ 2:05 pm
Any other takers for weird pixel stories? I’m sure everyone has their own little tale of Eets weirdness!
Comment by BigFoot — May 11, 2006 @ 3:15 pm
Well… I’m sure a lot of people have discovered this, but gravity behaves very wierdly when Eets atatches to something. Eets feet can atatch to the roof, preventing him to fall for a short time, and my level Flipper makes use of this. Here Eets runs on the bottom of a choco cloud, which makes him defy gravity and actually aquire a non zero speed upwards
Comment by David — May 12, 2006 @ 2:17 am