The list is essentially about educational based games that nailed entertainment (with a focus on scientific phenomenon). - mettamage on HN
Here is a collaborative notepad with educational/science games, i.e. games that are:
- capturing parts of a real scientific phenomena,
- actually playable (you can play them for fun, not ones from the "for classroom only" category).
This list was started by Piotr Migdał (the author of Quantum Game with Photons), everyone is welcomed to contribute! See: how to contribute.
A mini table of content: Physics, Biology, Computer Science, Health, Mathematics, Sociology and economy, Humanities
- www.testtubegames.com/velocityraptor.html
- special relativity theory
- contraction, time dilation, Doppler shift
- 2D arcade / puzzle
- free, on web (Flash)
- www.testtubegames.com/higgsflash.html
- elementary particles
- charges, antiparticles, neutrino oscillations, decay
- puzzle (Atomix-like)
- iOS game (2 chapter free, on web (Flash))
- gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light
- special relativity theory
- Doppler shift, geometric distortions
- 3D first person perspective walking
- free, Unity, code on GitHub: github.com/MITGameLab/OpenRelativity
- silverspaceship.com/chromatron
- geometric optics
- puzzle
- warning: a few elements are unreal (most are real, though)
- kerbalspaceprogram.com
- Newtonian physics, space program
- strategy
- testtubegames.com/bondbreaker.html
- electrostatics, chemistry
- 2d puzzle/action
- www.meqanic.com/app
- quantum computation and quantum information
- puzzle / blocks
- www.fungameco.com/relativity-wars.php
- space arcade / rts
- some parts of relativity
- quantumgame.io
- quantum mechanics, quantum optics
- puzzle / board / simulator
- source: github.com/stared/quantum-game
- blog post: Quantum mechanics for high-school students
- www.scienceathome.org/games
- adiabatic processes for quantum states
- puzzle / action
- citizen science
- testtubegames.com/shocktopus.html
- electromagnetism
- platformer
- www.kongregate.com/games/cellcraft/cellcraft
- cell biology
- real-time strategy
- Flash
- metnet-mbl.gdcb.iastate.edu
- plant and cell biology
- flight simulator
- nice descriptions of encountered elements
- fold.it
- protein conformation
- 3d puzzle
- citizen science
- boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71021/evolution-origin-species
- evolution
- card game
- learning.alimentarium.ch/en/games
- digestion
- tower defense
- Android, iOS (soon on web)
- turing-game.pl
- Turing tape, programming
- puzzle
- http://www.spacechemthegame.com
- algorithms
- puzzle
- www.ceebot.com/colobot/index-e.php
- programming multiple, possibly interacting, robots
- www.zachtronics.com/tis-100
- programming
- multiple very constrained CPUs + communication
- SpaceChem-style optimization
- www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io
- programming
- puzzle
- author of other games: http://www.zachtronics.com/ including SpaceChem
- see also: Lessons Learned from Shenzhen I/O
- http://www.robozzle.com/
- algorithms
- puzzle
- user-generated content
- https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine
- programming
- puzzle
- automation and optimization
- from the designers of Little Inferno and World of Goo
- https://code.org/learn
- many puzzle games about programming and algorithms
- some famous licences (ie. Minecraft, Disney)
- http://decodoku.com/
- quantum computation
- quantum error correction
- citizen science
- Web / Mac / Windows / Android / iPhone
- see also: Decodoku in 2017
- Cube Composer
- A puzzle game which is inspired by functional programming methods
- www.life-saver.org.uk
- cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
- interactive video story, fast-paced
- www.depressionquest.com
- understanding depression (esp. for ones who never experienced it)
- text-based game
- www.setgame.com
- addition in finite field (
Z_3^4) - real-time card game
- Set (game) - Wikipedia and Which popular games are the most mathematical? - MathOverflow
- agameofnumbers.com
- arithmetics
- puzzle/maze
- www.roguetemple.com/z/hyper/
- geometry of hyperbolic plane
- a rogue-like game
- www.roguetemple.com/z/hydra/
- arithmetics, a bit of number theory
- a rogue-like game
- www.mathbreakers.com
- arithmetics
- 3d adventure game
- euclidthegame.com
- planar geometry
- euclidea
- planar geometry
- centerforgamescience.org/blog/portfolio/refraction
- fractions
- puzzle
- paper on optimizing: http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/ordering/
- jacquerie.github.io/hh/
- graph theory
- puzzle
- www.peacemakergame.com
- Israel-Palestine peace process (unfortunately outdated and too optimistic)
- strategy
- www.positech.co.uk/democracy3
- democracy, ruling country
- turn-based economical strategy
- ncase.me/polygons
- social diversity, racial segregation (and phase transitions)
- agent-based simulation
- gregkarber.com/philo
- simple 2d platformers (puzzle, not - action)
- philosophical concepts, fallacies
- sjbyrnes.com/1235
- electric circuits
- 'hydrodynamical' simulation
If it is possible to gamify so seemingly boring things as learning keyboard shortcuts, then sky's the limit!
The easiest way is to edit this file, commit and create a Pull Request.
Remeber to include:
- working link (and its nicer version), e.g.
[immunology-fps.edu](https://immunology-fps.edu) - field of science or enginering, e.g.
immunology - type of game
first-person shooter - (optional) technology or system, e.g.
Android, iOS, web - (optional) link to additional materials (e.g. repo, some interesting blog post about this game)
A game needs to fit this category and it needs to have science-based mechanics (not only theme!) as its major part as:
Any sufficiently advanced game is indistinguishable from a science-based game. - PM, HN comment
If you want to change its form, you are invited as well - but then create your fork (and I would be happy to hear about it!).
All remarks, questions or discussions go to https://github.com/stared/science-based-games-list/issues/ (or @pmigdal Twitter).
- Do it in YAML? (To make it more semantic.)
- Make it more visual? (In the line of https://github.com/EliotAndres/kaggle-past-solutions.)
- Add other fields like release date or dev status?
- Add some standardized (600x400?) screenshots?