Beautiful Teardowns of Teardown

Teardown is my new game obsession. 

I put it on my Steam wishlist before it released in 2022 and only got around to playing it now. 

100% custom game engine built from scratch. Everything voxel ray-marched with true dynamic global illumination (soft shadows, ambient occlusion, volume/area lights, glowing objects) creating a phenomenal visual aesthetic. Brimming with physics! Glorious physics! A totally destructible physics sandbox environment supporting some fantastic physics puzzles. 

All implemented by one guy: Dennis Gustafsson. 

I’ve now read every developer blog, 3rd-party frame breakdown, and podcast interview to understand how this works under the hood. Links above so you don’t need to track them down. 🙂

And yes, there are applications for healthcare. 

Last time I was this technically impressed by a totally new game engine paradigm was Claybook back in 2017. It was the only GDC talk I attended that year besides my own. Following that talk felt like riding a bear as the developer quickly sped through a stream of implementation details… breaking down the first engine to support a 3d physics sandbox made of clay, fluids, and a range of the most challenging materials to implemented mathematically. 

Teardown really knocked it out of the park on both tech and [puzzle] design.