Introducing: Mecanika

This is the little game I've been working on in the last year as part of my Masters at UQAM. The name is Mecanika, and is a mix between Lemmings and World of Goo. The goal of Mecanika is to collect stars with little rocks by creating a path of impulsions, accelerations and rotations. It will be freely available as a flash game on http://www.gameforscience.ca/. This project is financed by the Inukshuk initiative, which allowed Creo to create a physics Island on their website to host the game. I am myself doing this project for free, and it is surprisingly still easy for me to get motivated by it.

The point of the game is to:
A) Have fun
B) Trigger misconceptions commonly encountered by physics novices
C) Be a fun homework that teachers can then use as a tool to address student's misconceptions

There are enough educational "games" out there that make you answer questions, apply formulas, and otherwise fail to exploit video games learning potential by trying to force a school's curriculum in preexisting game mechanics. Mecanika takes a different approach: it is a game about solving tricky physics puzzles, which hopefully will change how you think about physics, thus laying out the foundations for a proper education in the classroom.

Here are some screenies:

Mecanika will hit the interwebs on Winter 2011. In the meantime I will post my progress here.