This week we finished another game for Glasgow Science Centre.  Forces at the Funfair uses a rollercoaster game to get across the concepts of rolling resistance, drag and the impact of weight, shape and colour.  

Forces at the Funfair was another highly technical development.  Because the science centre wanted the game to be as accurate as possible, they called on freelance physicist Ben Craven to come up with a mathematical representation of the rollercoaster.  Ben’s model was highly detailed and in the end produced 72 different “what if” scenarios, timed to a tenth of a second.

The finished game puts a fun ‘skin’ on the logarithmic curves and equations that are going on behind the scenes.   I’m particularly pleased with the way the control panel turned out.  Rather than going for the usual Fisher Price look and feel, I opted for something a bit more industrial.  The result reminds me of the kind of control panel you might see in a 1950′s movie.