(Rate this game! 138 votes, average: 3.70 out of 5) (Rate this game!votes, average:out of 5)

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The concept of Zen Bondage is simplistic: Wrap rope around a block of wood. The implementation, though, is damn near flawless. I would be hard-pressed to find something to improve.

Physics Simulation

Zen Bondage isn’t a physics game in the typical sense of object dynamics. The game has nothing to do with inertia, forces, and gravity. Instead, it simulates a very narrow piece of reality–tying rope around an object. It does this very, very well. The goal of the game is to completely cover entire object with rope. Colored paint emanates from the rope to visually represent your progress. The trick is in covering the concave areas. For instance, if you accidentally span a gap with rope there isn’t any way to thread through the newly-created tunnel.

Rope Controls

Zen Bondage utilizes the Arcball technique to rotate the target object. For me, this was very intuitive. I’d be interested to see how well someone off the street–who’s never used 3D applications before–could handle the game. I suspect they could still play, although probably much more clumsily.

If you do make a mistake, you can simply unwind your object to bring the last rope connection point so it’s forward-facing. I’ve seen the rope get slightly “sticky” at times, where it doesn’t want to let go, but for the most part the game behaves exactly as you expect it would.

And that’s just what makes Zen Bondage so appealing–it does behave as expected. You’re never fighting the interface or the technology. There are a lot of very clever things going on behind the scenes to mask complexity from the user. It’s a very polished user experience. The visuals are clean and the audio complements the theme perfectly.

What About a Full Simulation?

The physics simulation in Zen Bondage is rather abstracted. It would be interesting to see the same concept implemented in a full physics engine. With something like AGEIA’s PhysX hardware you could easily simulate the rope to a very high degree of fidelity. Ironically, it would probably make the game more frustration than fun, as rope already laid down would shift around. It would make for a good study. Idealized reality tends to be much more enjoyable than reality itself.



(Zen Bondage Game Screenshots)

It’s Free

Zen Bondage was developed by Moppi Productions, a small team active in the demo scene (they’ve produced a number of demos for parties such as Assembly). Zen Bondage is freeware.

Download Zen Bondage game here (23.2 MB).