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Rigid-body 2D physics

Free packv3.0.0-42DPhysics

The engine's own rigid-body solver for 2D games: things that fall, push, stack, bounce and swing. A body is an ordinary game object with a `body` key, and what a platformer or physics puzzle needs, from one-way platforms to conveyor belts and water, is part of its spec.

This is a Free pack. Every phaser.io account can use it in their games.

Released October 14, 2026 · updated October 19, 2026

Rigid-body 2D physics: a screenshot of its demo
A note about these graphics

Expansion packs don't come with graphics. This screenshot is one way of drawing what the pack does, made for its demo: none of the sprites, tiles or backgrounds in it are in the pack.

That's by design. A pack is a game's logic, mechanics and effects, and it works with whatever art you give it. Some packs draw effects, backdrops or 3D scenes of their own, but none carries a game's sprites.

So the look is yours. Make the art on phaser.io, bring your own, or let your agent draw it in code: the same pack can look like anything.

What it does

body: {} on a spawn makes an object a body: a box the size of its sprite by default, or a circle, an upright capsule, a polygon (concave outlines are triangulated) or a compound of shapes. Each fixed step the solver moves the bodies and writes x, y and rot back, so the object draws where the physics put it and tag collision rules still see it. Velocity is a property: you set hero.body.vx to run and call impulse to jump. Gravity is on by default, 900 units per second squared downwards; set it to zero for space.

The solver is substepped, four times a fixed step by default, so stacks settle without jittering and joints do not stretch. Bodies that stay under 3 units a second for half a second go to sleep until something touches them. A body knows whether it is grounded, which sides are blocked, and what it is touching, with the sustained load in multiples of its own weight, so a platformer's jump check and a puzzle's "is this being crushed" are both one line.

Joints take world points and hand back a live joint rather than an id. Its length, min, max, hertz and damping are read by the solver every step, so a grapple that reels in, a suspension that stiffens and a winch that pays out are one number changing each frame, with no teardown and no visible jolt. Effectors add fields: wind over an area, a gravity well that pulls or repels, and buoyant water whose density is measured against each body's own, so one pool floats some things high, some low and sinks the rest.

Features

  • Shapes — boxes, circles, upright capsules for characters, convex and concave polygons, and compounds.
  • Body types — dynamic, static, and kinematic bodies you move yourself, which carry whatever stands on them.
  • Platformer surfaces — one-way platforms in any of four directions, and conveyors whose surfaceSpeed can change while things ride them.
  • Six joints — pin (a hinge with limits and a motor), rope (a rod, a rope with slack or a spring), slider, wheel (sprung suspension in one joint), weld and grab (the mouse joint).
  • Contacts you can read — grounded, blocked per side, touching with impulse, approach speed and load, and a physics.contact signal for thuds and damage.
  • Effectors — area forces such as wind, point forces that attract or repel, and buoyancy with flow and drag.
  • Chain terrain — physics.chain(points) turns a polyline into static ground with no notches at the joins.
  • Filters, sensors and bullets — 32-bit categories and masks, sensors that report and never push, and bullet bodies that are swept so they do not pass through thin walls.
  • Arcade movement — per-body thrust, drag towards zero and speed caps, for ships and top-down movers.
  • World bounds and culling — walls or bouncing edges round the world, and a cull rect that removes bodies leaving it and reports where they went.
  • Raycasts — the nearest body along a ray, with the hit point and normal.

Good for

  • Platformers — capsule characters that glide over seams, one-way ledges, moving lifts and conveyors.
  • Physics puzzles — stacks, seesaws, hinged doors and things to crush or topple, with load readings to judge them.
  • Bat-and-ball and pinball games — bouncing balls, world edges that bounce on three sides, and hinged flippers driven by motors.
  • Ragdolls and swinging — hinges with limits, ropes with slack and grapples that reel.
  • Space and top-down games — gravity off, thrust and drag on each body, and gravity wells.
  • Water levels — buoyant pools with a current, where heavy things sink and light ones float.

Make it yours

The pack options are gravity ({ x: 0, y: 900 } by default), substeps (4, or 6 to 8 for taller stacks) and cull, a rect round the level beyond which bodies are removed. Gravity can change at any time with game.physics.gravity, and most body fields are live: velocity, thrust, drag, speed caps, restitution, friction, gravity scale and a conveyor's surface speed.

Two different uses: a platformer with gravity down, a capsule hero with fixedRotation, one-way ledges, a kinematic lift, and collision categories that let enemies overlap the hero for damage rules while both land on the walls; and a top-down space game with gravity at zero, ships with drag and speed caps, and point effectors pulling them towards planets.

A quick look

Ground, a crate, a bouncing ball, a concave rock and a capsule hero who runs and jumps:

game.spawn({ id: 'ground', x: 320, y: 350, width: 640, height: 20, body: { type: 'static' } });
game.spawn({ id: 'crate', x, y, width: 32, height: 32, body: {} });                       // a box the sprite's size
game.spawn({ id: 'ball',  x, y, width: 20, height: 20, body: { shape: 'circle', restitution: 0.6 } });
game.spawn({ id: 'rock',  x, y, body: { shape: { kind: 'polygon', points: [[-30,-30],[0,-30],[0,0],[30,0],[30,30],[-30,30]] } } });
game.spawn({ id: 'hero',  x, y, width: 24, height: 32, body: { shape: 'capsule', fixedRotation: true, friction: 0.2 } });
hero.body.vx = dir * 160;                       // velocity is a property
if (hero.body.grounded && jump) hero.body.impulse(0, -hero.body.mass * 420);

Works with

  • collision — required: overlap rules by tag work on bodies, and they run after the physics.
  • tiles-2d — a tilemap's solid tiles become merged static bodies, with slopes and one-way tiles.
  • grid-move — drives body velocity for four-way lane movement, so walls stay solid.
  • feel and audio — read physics.contact for impacts and thuds.
  • physics-rope — ropes with weight whose ends can be tied to these bodies.
  • physics-box2d — when you want Box2D's own behaviour instead; compose one or the other.

Good to know

  • Writing x, y or rot on a body is a teleport, adopted next step. Never use collide.solid() on bodies: the solver owns their separation.
  • It is tuned for boxes of 10 to 200 units and speeds under about 3000 units a second; bigger or faster needs bullet or more substeps.
  • force() lasts one 60 Hz frame; for sustained thrust use ax and ay.
  • Contacts beyond 512 a frame are dropped from the signal, though touching still sees them all.
  • For Box2D's exact stacking and continuous collision use physics-box2d, and for 3D, physics-3d.

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