This game, Crayon Physics Deluxe, seems like it could have amazing potential as a teaching tool for the physical science course I will be teaching next year as well as the physics and chemistry sections we will be opening up for our students.
Designed by a college student in Finland (I think) over a time period of 18 months, it is made to simulate real world physics. The challenge, simply, is to get the red ball to connect with the gold star. The trick, you have to use the physics of the game in order to accomplish your task.
While the game does not seem to enumerate the laws that it used in order to develop the game, these laws are relatively intuitive after playing the game and I bet I can get students to enumerate them after playing this game.
We will see. I plan on purchasing a version to play myself and then work hard to get it available to all of our students next year, if we can afford it.
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