About
The Powder Toy's genre, the "falling-sand game," uses a two-dimensional particle or cellular-automaton engine to simulate different materials interacting with each other in a sandbox. The Powder Toy is a free, open-source (GPLv3) 2D physics sandbox simulating air pressure, velocity, heat, gravity, and interactions between many different materials — from powders and liquids to gases and electronic components — letting players build machines, circuits, and even custom CPUs. It's actively developed, runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android, and is also available on Steam.
Getting started
Click and drag with the mouse to place elements, similar to a paint program; keyboard shortcuts control brush shape and size, pausing, saving/loading stamps, zooming, and other tools. Registering an online account is needed to save creations or comment on the community's shared saves.
History
The Powder Toy was originally designed by Stanislaw K Skowronek, with Simon Robertshaw building the website and continuing to own and run the project's server.
Media
Additional notes
- Modding
- A Lua API lets players script automation or build their own plugins/mods for the game.