"It should be pointed out, however, that physics is not the only systemic toy upon which fun games can be built. Probability fields, such as those forged by the colours, numbers and suits in a deck of cards, and the stochastic patterns that emerge from mixing those cards up, are another well-known toy upon which many great games are built. In fact, there is a literal infinity of foundational systemic toys upon which meaningful games can be built, yet for the most part, the game industry focuses on building baseline game engines that simulate one single toy that is proven to only be marginally fun: physical reality."

"We are making a model of how a product is, to the degree that we can in video. We subject it to as much rigour as we can in terms of the material and technological capabilities we think can be built.

It must not be magic, or else it won’t feel real.

I guess I’m saying sufficiently-advanced technology should be distinguishable from magic." This is a lovely pulling-together of things from Matt J, and really manages to express the notions of "physics" and "rulesets" that I always enjoyed so much.

" For our project, we had to find three scenes from any movie or TV show and use physics to find out if something was or wasn't possible. I got 100% on it." In this case: 'Physical Impossibilities in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'. He's really not wrong about the animation.

"We attempt to further examine the nature of the chicken: is it a particle, or a wave? Watch to find out." Great experiments of physics, built in Minecraft, applied to chickens.

"In this programme we hear from colleagues, friends and former students as well as the great man himself about the beauty of nature and the importance of science to our understanding of the world." A lovely Archive Hour on Radio 4, on Richard Feynman; only available for a few more days, so grab it whilst you can. Delightful, and nicely structured.

"A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving." Oh boy. That's quite a thing (and: quite a sentence!)

"Let's Go Find El Dorado is a physics-based remake of Oregon Trail which plays a bit like Excite Bike." Seriously, do you need to know any more to click the link?

"Size has been one of the most popular themes in monster movies, especially those from my favorite era, the 1950s. The premise is invariably to take something out of its usual context--make people small or something else (gorillas, grasshoppers, amoebae, etc.) large--and then play with the consequences. However, Hollywood's approach to the concept has been, from a biologist's perspective, hopelessly naïve." Fantastic: transcripts of a series of lectures about the biology of B-Movie monsters; funny, accurate, informative.

"...hard-core players are comfortable mentally manipulating Peggle's complex physics. They can build models about where the ball is going to go, even after the seventh or eight collision. A frustrated casual gamer looks at Peggle and sees chaos; a hard-core one sees causality." Oh - now that _is_ an interesting way to look at things.

Almost Atari 2600-era platforming, but with a couple of (big) twists. Compulsive, and cross-platform, it's almost definitely worth an hour of your day.

"The purpose of this analysis is to determine the evolution of gravity in the Mario video game series as video game hardware increases." Not super-accurate, but not bad; the bit when it starts the comparison against GPU word length is a little silly, perhaps. But otherwise: fun!

It's bonkers. Tiny pixel art, incredible procedural animation for limbs, massive menus, it's like Worms and Soldner (was it Soldner?) and loads of other things all rolled into one. And they're still working on it.

"In essence, the in-game physics cooked up by Pure's designers isn't merely a matter of being realistic or unrealistic. The physics is evocative, creating your worldview within the game, and even metaphoric: When you play Pure, you realize that physics is one of the truly artistic elements of an action title." Yes! Spot on, Clive Thompson.

"These concepts are not complicated by Cern standards. We are entering a zone which is weaponised to boggle."

You're a little robot. You're also indestructible. Use bombs to bounce yourself around the level, but don't run out. Lovely little flash game.

"I've heard that Japanese developers, who have traditionally held American game development in low esteem, have a great deal of respect for Bungie, and you can understand why. Bungie has done for shooters what Nintendo did for platformers: they've turned the visceral joys control and motion into the centerpiece of the game."

"In I-Fluid you will experience our everyday life from the eyes of…a drop of water!" Stunningly beautiful physics-oriented Windows puzzle game. Makes me want to buy a PC right now.

"Cosmology is the girl that doesn't really date, but has lots of hot friends. Some people date cosmology just to hang out with her friends." Link of the day, no question. Funny, and just-right-enough to make it funnier.

Awesome: you're a tank. You can't die, but you are the weapon - so you ricochet around the screen from explosions trying to bump into enemies. As you level up, you increase the *number of enemies* which makes big combos easier. Silly, addictive, fun.

"OE-CAKE! is demonstration software for 2D-based multi-physics simulation.
In a way similar to drawing images using paint software, users create objects and can see them move according to the laws of physics. "

Lovely; as leonardr says, a "2D Super Mario Galaxy". Hop around planetoids rescuing kittens. Ace!

"The most perfectly round objects ever made by humanity, flying through the void on one of the purest scientific quests ever." Wow.

NoLimits is a rollercoaster simulator. It looks awfully fun - especially the track designer

A talk by Matt Webb from Reboot7 - he referenced it in his playsh talk, and it's very much worth going over again.