An obscenely rich teenager throws his VR controller across the room in a fit of blind panic while playing Half-Life: Alyx. It leaves the window of his bedroom at 5m/s. It falls 10m vertically and hits his neighbour s greenhouse, smashing the glass. How many metres did the controller travel horizontally before coming to a stop in the tomatoes? Use a kinematic formula to determine your answer and show your wor–

UGH, physics. Here are 10 games where physics is not boring, but good.

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Right out of the oven, here are the hottest new games on Steam from February and boy they are hot indeed. Put those games on the cooling rack and open a window, will you? Games with “sexual content,” (in the parlance of professional business speak) do occasionally crack the list of top selling new games but four is quite a feat. There are other trends to note as well: nearly half of the list are newly in Early Access or have just graduated from EA to a complete release. It was a big month for small and sexy games!

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If I had to choose a single incident to sum up my time in physics-y medieval build and destroy em up Besiege, it would probably be the time I got 15 steps into its 33-part guide to making a plane, saw that it was asking me to access the advanced build menu, despaired for a second, and then realised that I didn’t need a plane at all: I could do what I wanted to just by making a really tall, leggy mess of a thing. This was my quintessential Besiege moment for a lot of reasons, but the main one is this: Besiege lets you do a lot of very complicated things, but it s actually a lot more fun when you re just messing about.

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Towns, towers, castles and citadels. Physics-nonsense siege ’em up Besiege has taken down all sorts, but now it’s time to break the toughest wall of all – early access itself. After five years of building up its bloody machinations, developers Spiderling Studios are ready to smash their war machine into full release on Tuesday the 18th, packing some nifty new automated components and an entire desert island into the back of the wagon to boot.

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Happy holidays! Time to see what s in your stocking. Oh, it s another copy of The Golf Handbook (Third Edition). And some toenail clippers. Great. No, honestly, that s fine. It s not like little Jemima over there is dashing about in her cool lion slippers, making you ache for an era of innocence and novelty that you can never revisit. And who cares if she s clashing her dinosaur figurines over the ruins of a Lego city? You certainly don t. Why, you barely notice as her damned wonderful slippers go rarr with every step. Oh well, better go set the table for dinner.

No! We won t allow it. Turn that holiday frown upside-holiday-down, adult friend of mine. Children do not have a monopoly on fun. Here are seven playthings that ll make you click, smile, discover, and giggle. These are all toys as much as they are games, and they’re your real stocking fillers. Enjoy.

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Multiplayer and a level editor are coming to physics-based warmachine workshop Besiege [official site] later this year, developers Spiderling Games have announced. The Besiege Multiverse will let up to 8 players fight each other’s creations, compete to complete objectives, play cooperatively, or simply lark about in a murderous sandbox. The level editor will also be part of the Multiverse and, yes, let players build levels while others work on machines. I am so very excited to watch the wacky minigames and robot wars that will come of this. Have a peek in this Multiverse trailer: … [visit site to read more]

Every week we dispatch Brendan to scour the post-apocalyptic wastes of early access and scavenge whatever games he can find. This week, he returns with multiplayer car combat game Crossout [official site].>

Crossout is an action game about building a terrifying car made out of swords and skulls and then driving around the wasteland, pumping other drivers full of lead. It has a soundtrack made up of gentle guitar.

… [visit site to read more]

Each week Marsh Davies hurls himself at the colossal walls of Early Access and comes back with any stories he can find and/or soaks the earth with the blood of his fallen foes. This week he is catapulted into Besiege, a beautiful, physics-based, build-your-own-ballista game.>

Dr Blam is a killing machine. He does not have a medical licence. What he does have is a trio of metal braziers mounted at one end of a large wooden frame, each cupping an oversized explosive ball. The braziers are also attached to springs, stretched taut and fixed to armatures at the other end of the frame. Press a button and the braziers explosively decouple from their moorings while a set of three pistons gives them a little bit of extra lift, the springs contract, and the braziers twang upwards and forwards, slinging their contents in a long arc. Most of the time they even go in the right direction. Dr Blam is not really interested in surgical precision, but if the patient under his tender administration is a castle or a flock of sheep, then a messy lesson in anatomy is guaranteed.

… [visit site to read more]