Mutilate-a-Doll
- Genre Arcade games
- Players 1
- Session 5 min
- Price Free
- Updated
There is no level, score or timer in Mutilate-a-Doll. You get a black box with grey walls, a stack of menus and a ragdoll made of plain grey rectangles with a brown square for a head, and the rest is up to you. Drop a hammer on it, rest a sword against its shoulder, set off an explosion under its feet, or line up ten dolls and a minigun. The physics engine treats every piece as a solid body with joints, so limbs swing, snap off and bounce around the room, and the doll leaks small red dots where it is cut. That last part is worth saying plainly: this is a toy about breaking a figure apart, drawn in a stark diagrammatic style rather than with realistic gore, and it is meant for older players. Released in 2010 by the developer known as 0rava, it became one of the best known sandbox toys of the late Flash era because almost every value in it is exposed, from the size and bounciness of the next object to the strength of gravity and the level of the water.
| Left side tab | Open the Object menu: pick a category, click an item, then click the stage to place it |
|---|---|
| Right side tab | Open the World menu with gravity, wind, water level, slow motion and the full Controls list |
| Space | Spawn a ragdoll under the mouse pointer |
| H, J, T | Spawn a hammer, a sword or a chainsaw at the pointer |
| X | Set off an explosion where the pointer is |
| R | Reset the room and clear every object |
| Caps Lock | Keep spawning the selected item on every click |
How to play Mutilate-a-Doll
- Click once inside the game so it takes the keyboard. The welcome text sits at the top of an empty dark room.
- Press the small arrow tab on the left, open Objects and choose Ragdoll, then close the menu and click where the doll should appear.
- Open Melee, Firearms or Explosives in the same menu and place a blade, a gun or a mine near the doll. Hold the mouse button and move it to change the angle of the item you spawn.
- Use the right tab to change the world: lower Gravity, add Wind, raise the Water level or tick Slow motion.
- When the room gets crowded, press R to wipe it and start a new experiment.
Tips
- The hotkey list under World menu, Controls covers nearly thirty objects, so it is quicker than digging through the categories once you know a few letters.
- Size, Density, Friction and Restitution at the top of the Object menu apply to the next thing you spawn. A tiny heavy anvil and a huge light circle behave very differently.
- Untick Ragdolls break and Joints break if you want a doll that flops around but stays in one piece.
- Explosions throw dolls into the walls hardest when they are placed just under the body, not beside it.
Questions about Mutilate-a-Doll
Is Mutilate-a-Doll suitable for kids?
No. The whole point is cutting, shooting and blowing up a human-shaped doll. It is drawn as grey blocks with red dots instead of realistic blood, but the theme is violent.
Is there a goal or a score?
No. It is a pure sandbox: you set up a scene, watch the physics play out and reset whenever you like.
Can I play it on a phone?
Only with difficulty. Menus and spawning work by clicking, but the panels and list items are tiny and the fastest tools are keyboard shortcuts, so a computer is far better.
Which weapons are there?
The Firearms list alone has pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, grenade launcher, sniper, flamer, minigun, cannon, harpoon gun, laser and nailgun, and the New list adds a cleaver, a bone saw, a tomahawk, a pitchfork and even a trout.
