Game Information
| Title | Mecanika |
| Presenter(s) | François Boucher-Genesse (MA student / game designer / programmer, University of Quebec in Montreal), Martin Riopel & Patrice Potvin (Teachers, University of Quebec in Montreal), Creo (company - visuals) |
| Session | Conference Reception, Game Exhibition, and Poster Session |
| Time | Thursday, October 21, 7:00p-9:00p |
| Location | East Lansing Technology Innovation Center |
| Format | Game Exhibition |
| Description | Mecanika is a free web-based game, inspired by World of Goo and The Lemmings, in which students have to use their intuition and Newtonian concepts to solve physics puzzles. In Mecanika, players manage space janitors in order to collect stars with small collector robots. The players create a path of localized impulsions, forces zones and circular movement zones to lead the collectors properly to the stars. Mecanika allows players to gradually travel from a world which seemingly reacts like the world around them (simulated with the Box2D physics library) to an ideal world teachers frequently use to explain Newton laws, and where friction and gravity are ignored.
The game is formatted in a way that makes it easy for teachers to use it as homework, allowing students to play with the concepts before they are discussed in the classroom. Teachers also have access to a detailed guide which helps them understand how to use some levels as examples in the classroom. Mecanika is designed for a 3 to 5 hours of gameplay (with 52 puzzles). It is developed as a joint initiative between the Université du Québec à Montréal and CREO, a multimedia company based in Montreal, and will be published as part of the www.gameforscience.ca virtual world. It will be completed in September, allowing the presentation of a finalized product at the Meaningful Play 2010 conference. Most levels in Mecanika are designed to trigger common misconceptions in physics. For example, right after the player gets in space (without gravity), he has to use downward impulsion robots to reach a star placed below. The collectors have an initial horizontal velocity. Most players will rely on the concept that the last force to act imposes the trajectory, and will therefore place the downward pointing impulse robot right on top of the star. By experimenting around they will intuitively understand that the last impulse doesn’t entirely dictate the trajectory. This is a simple example; the game later gets students to play with robots that force circular movements, to traverse zones at a specific speed, to traverse special zones only using a specific number of active forces, etc. |