The Powder Toy
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux
Following in the tradition of the classic sandbox games (Sand Sand Sand and Powder Game), The Powder Toy by HardWIRED is a small download which stretches the boundaries of what is possible with a few simple elements. In fact, you can do almost anything with it, the only limit is your imagination.
The basic controls of The Powder Toy are extremely simple and largely consist of using just the mouse. Select an element and place it on the screen. Which elements you choose, when and where they are placed in relation to each other, and which elements already exist on screen all have a different affect on the resulting display interactions. With almost 150 elements at your disposal, this could, at first, seem chaotic. However, the simulation lends itself to experimentation, and as you become accustomed to the different elements and their interactions, the keyboard can be employed to further enhance the variety.
Along with more simplistic elements such as Wall, Sand, Water, Rain, Fire, Lava, Lightning, the game also employs colour-coded wireless transmitters that can be set up to remotely trigger events which ordinary powders are incapable of doing. There are heat and cold sensitive triggers, elements which react when under extreme pressure, elements which react to electricity, elements that can allow only certain other elements to pass through them, there are even teleportation portals! All of these elements can behave differently still based on the weather conditions involved, and yes, you have the ability to control the direction and intensity of the wind!
To really see the depth of the game, it is imperative to examine the simulation gallery which showcases the better user-created experiments. For example, at the time of this review, there is a destroyable five-level city which features a skyscraper and, when the simulation begins, a generator transfers energy throughout the city to light "lightbulbs" in each of the various rooms. I then proceeded to cover the city with lava. There is also a water reactor, which utilizes water, heat, pressure, steam, turbines and more in order to push electricity through a transformer and down power cables, taking the electricity off-screen.
The Powder Toy expands upon traditional browser-based sandbox experiences and puts a world of elements at your disposal. This is more than a simple toy where you can draw and watch pretty particles bump into each other. This can be a serious creativity tool that allows you to build working machines and independent environments that interact with each other. Think of yourself as the god of all powders and you've got a good place to start when you nab the game!
Allow your curiosity and creativity to be unleashed, with the fascinating and engaging simulations of The Powder Toy.
Windows:
Download the free full version
Mac OS X:
Download the free full version
Linux:
Download the free full version
This game is like powder game+. In fact, it looks like one of the best dust games out there. In fact, I regret that this just came up on this site, as I had homework that needed to be done. Now I must spend hours experimenting.
Oh well, there are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon :P
Hm. On my Macbook, it closes immediately after launching. Anybody else having this issue?
@ Buttons
Try restarting. It worked for me. :)
Yeah, I'm having the same problem as Buttons.
me too, and restarting didn't work. im on mac osx 10.5.8 leopard.
Boo. The full one only works with Intel OSX and the Beta version's link is broken :,(
Yeah, I think it's safe to say the Mac version is broken.
Nope, it works on snow leopard. I tested.
[Yep, you're right. Although it says 10.5+, it must mean 10.6+ instead. -Jay]
Hmm..
A very interesting and in-depth game.
Probally too deep for me!
I can't really find anything to entertain myself with, especially with every element turned into "PSWH" or "INGF". ._.
Ahh, such a tease
I agree with Turnip. There's too much freedom in there to be a game.
I love Minecraft because you have the freedom to do amazing things while being in a world with some basic rules and easy objetives (building a shelter/castle, mining, spelunking, etc.), but this is too much.
They may give you a text editor and a C compiler and say: "look this game, you can do whatever you want with it". Well, yes, but is not a game.
Everything is too small, the window occupies 5% of my monitor and I can't tell what does what.
The Snow Leopard requirement seems to be a thing with games, now. I should probably just suck it up and upgrade.
Is there any way to increase the resoultion? It is ridiculiously small
I am having wayyy too much fun simulating nuclear bombs. FYI, Quartz acts as a very good insulator against most explosions... it's shock-resist5ant, although it does melt.
Great game, but i hated figuring out the controls at first. Also, some advice, if your scroll wheel is broken (like mine), it gets hard to do anything because you need it to change tool size. (You can use + and - keys instead)
- and, it seems to work fine for me, I have a Mac...
I am going to scream halleluja to the heavens now. It has a built-in game of life!!!
how do you change your pen shape?
jay, can you add a tag for download games that are free? what i mean is games that dont have those idiotic 1 hour trials. this is so i can find these for internet shortages :)
[Actually, it's pretty easy to find them right now with our current tags. Just go to the download tag page (http://jayisgames.com/tag/download) and type CTRL-F to find entries tagged with "free". You could also do the opposite, go to the free tag listing, and search for "download", but there's going to be many, many more free games than downloads, so your search will be easier on the download tag page. :) -Jay]
i say same as the guy at the top, I had a huge social studies project due that counts for 80% of my grade and i wasted all of my time on powder toy (it was worth it)
Update