Back to Unity 3, I tried to create some gameplay using physical animations, when they were not supported yet. The setup was simple but very resource expensive, I decided to write something about this in the case somebody is trying to do something similar. So, everything is physically simulated, and to each cube is being applied a force to move into its natural position, this position is determined by a waypoint locked inside a skeleton. So a skeleton is being animated, moving "sockets", each cube that composes a character is trying to move towards an assigned socket. If a cube is destroyed it detach from his socket and all the child follow the parents keeping the last offset related to the parent, simulating physical body accordingly.

The downside of this kind of setup is that everything is very bouncy, if you try the game you may notice that it's hard to jump on the columns because of these. Of course, it makes sense only if the aesthetic is very abstract.

On the other side, it feels very alive, and it's possible to drive gameplay mechanics too. Possibly animating only part of the body may create a smoother feeling, for instance, the sword may stick precisely to the skeleton rather than being animated. I would like to see some games using this kind of setup! Enjoy the demo! ;)