The Powder Toy
The Powder Toy is a free physics sandbox game, which simulates air pressure and velocity, heat, gravity and a countless number of interactions between different substances! The game provides you with various building materials, liquids, gases and electronic components which can be used to construct complex machines, guns, bombs, realistic terrains and almost anything else. You can then destroy them and watch cool explosions, add intricate wirings, play with little stickmen or operate your machine. You can browse and play thousands of different saves made by the community or upload your own – we welcome your creations!
The game is very resource intensive. A powerful phone is recommended to play it properly. Button sizes have been increased in many places, but you might need a large phone screen or a tablet in order to have a better experience. If you find a feature that is hard to use on a touchscreen, or is absent from the Android version of the game, leave some feedback by clicking the bug icon in game or making a post on the forums.
It is fully compatible with the PC version of the game, saves made in one version can be loaded in the other.
Website: http://powdertoy.co.uk/Download.htmlSource code (GPL): https://github.com/jacob1/The-Powder-Toy
Category : Simulation
Reviews (27)
I wish it could fit the whole screen, as of right now there are large borders on either side of the gameplay area. also, my phone must be in the right orientation otherwise the cursor does not match where I am touching. (presumably related to borders on screen) This is despite the fact that the image flips to maintain proper orientation. I do play in landscape, but the resolution of the phone makes the play area rather small. i wish it were resizable, on PC as well.
I'm relatively astonished at how realistically the simulations run on my mediocre phone! I understand this is a port of a pre-existing PC application, but the developer has done an excellent job of refactoring it into something that runs on devices with much less horsepower. And a note to those who feel this 'game' is too complicated: Well, yes - it can be rather intimidating, and it IS too complicated for a game. But it isn't a game - it's a simulation sandbox, and it requires at least a basic understanding of physics, material science, chemistry, etc; however, you don't need a Ph.D in order to enjoy the app. You just need to know the basic concepts, such as how pressure and temperature might affect certain liquids and gasses, and a mind curious enough to research the gaps. But if you get past that initial intimidation, this app holds many hours of interesting and cool discoveries!
5 stars only because it introduced me to The Powder Toy and because you can use it to view creations for ideas while you're on the go. Other than that, it's nearly impossible to do anything except mess around with blobs of stuff on the mobile version. The only thing I see possible to make this game usable is adding a curser that can be moved around and buttons to simulate the mouse buttons. Standard touch is nowhere near accurate enough to be viable here.
the game seems like it'd be fun, but for some reason, the touches aren't calibrated in the least bit on my Moto g6 play. I have to touch very far to the left to change between the powder types, and the further left I want to pick, the more distance there is between my tap and the powder I select. it's this way with all the menus, but oddly enough, when I drop powder, it comes out exactly where I tap the screen. honestly not sure what would be causing this, but it makes the game unplayable.
Game is AWESOME! Both mobile and desktop. However I feel like it's missing one thing, and I think maybe another review pointed it out. Rubber. As air pressure goes up on the inside, it bends out. And the thicker it is the harder it is to bend. And maybe make it so it can tear. I don't know how hard it would be to implement, so if it's too complicated, I don't really care. I'd just really like to make balloons and explode them
Definitely the best sand type game out. Crazy explosions are possible. My favorite thing to do is mess around with fusion/fission of various gasses. The game on pc is much easier to actually complete projects on, but this is still top notch and is a 1:1 port with the pc version. But even on my s20 ultra it slows down if I fill the screen up with particles but my gaming pc does the same thing.
Awesome! Very awesome I do dare it a 4 because there is one thing I want to see in this game! Rubber! Make it to where if you draw a box with indestructible wall, or any other element, and you make a hole in the box and replace it with rubber, make it to where the rubber bends more as the air pressure goes up! Do this and I will rate it a five!
Powder toy is a great game, and my favorite physics simulation game. It has everything you could want in a sandbox game, the only problem is, is that it's best played on a computer, this is a mobile port. The reason why I gave it 2 stars is because everything feels awkward and out of place on a phone, all the buttons and text are super tiny and hard to hit with precision, you can't be precise of where you want to put something, and overall it feels clunky and awkward, and ruins the experience.
This, frankly, is the gold standard for sand games. Many, many features, many interactions- No limit for particles (now, it does lag with enough, but it still ABSOLUTELY lets you HAVE as many as desired.) Some PC features are missing, but its a non issue. The game is even ad free, FOR free, and doesnt have ANY paid features, it's just something you can IMMEDIATELY use to its fullest!
I absolutely love it, but there are a few things I'd like to see added. Liquid nitrogen doesn't just disappear, it turns back into the gas form of nitrogen, so it would help if you added nitrogen to the gases. Also, I would like to see options for smaller boards/playing areas so that you could precisely build on a small scale. The zoom window doesn't really help because you'd need less sensitivity to make stuff precisely.
Great game! As realistic as it gets with a free mobile game. No ads, game save options, and many, MANY elements to play with! Been playing for over 1 year now, both on mobile and PC. Love the game, really gives a chance to show creativity. Good choice for a great physics/sandbox game.
On a computer, this is the free "Falling Sand" game to end all free "Falling Sand" games (except maybe wxsand for its being open to modding), and the vast majority of its functionality has been preserved here for mobile. I shouldn't be complaining, but I do miss the ability to toggle seeing more detail when "mousing", or rather HOLDING in this case, over a particle, to be able to see its c-type, tmp, etc. It runs poorly too on some saves (5fps), but I'm using a Moto G4, so fair enough.
Exactly like the original PC version. All the critical reviews are written by mouth-breathing troglodytes or children complaining about things like the behavior of the GoL algorithm or device performance. Could be improved with UI scaling for high-res screens or a modified UI. The buttons are quite small and the app runs with black bars on Samsung S10.
This is a very interesting and very educational game. The electronics are way more advanced than your typical circuit game/simulation, I would highly recommend this to anybody interested in simulation, creation and phisical games. The only thing I would change is the maximum space of pixels you can place, seen as making big projects would be hard to fit in a small box none the less it is still fairly big. I would also highly advise installing this on pc rather than mobile.
My opinion this is great. But I want elements like copper and lead and the other desktop elements to be on mobile because I don't have a computer. But even without this game is already great but I can't make straight lines with wall please add a feature to make one full straight line wall that would be great! But overall this game is great
The game is absolutely amazing! You can even install a mod thg at allows you to play with others! All in all this is a stellar game with little to no flaws! There is one thing that bugs me, which is that people that play on mobile devices struggle if they dont have some pretty stable fingers to draw straight lines when building whatever. But I have mastered the art of the('0') STABLE FINGER!Anyways this is my favorite game ever and If whoever you are don't mind, would you look up Golden_powder?
Very interesting an enjoyable game! I see many people's complaints about button size, and it makes sense to me. If you, the Developer, increased the size of all the buttons, there would be little to no more space for the sandbox itself. The only thing I believe would make the game a 5 star is a changable brush size. (If that already exists, please let me know)
Needs better controls for touch screen I mean I had to attach a keyboard to use the Fan's but otherwise great game. EDIT:its been years since I first played this on my old tablet and I still say it's an awesome game, though I play it on my PC now. If the controls are a little funny on mobile don't quit just keep playing and hopefully you'll get used to them and make a great save.
It's alright but you need the ability to mix things while the game is paused. Trying to come up with precise mixtures is a frustrating nightmare with lil clear instructions and no real drawing tools. The stamp doesn't work. How about a spray paint feature? In a game with so many volitile chemicals it's nearly a nightmare to mix and place things. Realistic sim very very poor interface.
It's very fun, and it has many elements👍🏾. But is there a way you can just view something without having to add anything? Sometimes I just want to see what I made and created. If there is not, please add a cursor maybe? So we can just view something? Thank you😁
Hey! I've been playing this game for 1 year and its never get Boring! The elements and the Feature is Great!. And the Community is Very Amazing! But its not end in here, I have Request for Developer. Can you guys add "Slow Motion" Feature? Because Sometimes my Phone Can't handle a Very Big Explosion which is Makes me feel Satisfying and ended up with 1 FPS. But wait!, Its not about my Personal Feeling and about how Potato my Phone is. The Feature might makes the game More Realistic with Slow Mo!
This is one if not the BEST powder physics game in this platform and it is really enjoyable with everything being free without ads (I wouldn't really mind if you add some). And these two are things that I might suggest... - add gui scale settings - add playground scale settings (could reduce significant lag) But apart from that, well done!
I was looking for this kind of game for a long time, I've made nuclear engines, normal engines, space capsules, Noble gas reactor that turns on and off, Uranaim reactors, art and more. Also for any players looking at this to see if its a good game, I would recomend installing it and take my word its a confuzing, but when you do learn it's interesting.
Super confusing but it seems really cool with what I could figure out. Which wasn't much. There's probably something I'm missing that wasn't made obvious enough to first timers. Or there wasn't. I really don't know. Hopefully they'll add a good tutorial or help system.
I remember when I first discovered tpt in high school back in 2011. I played it almost every night all through high school and still play it on occasion and got to the second page with a "living" dinosaur and some nukes. I wanted a version on my phone for years and I'm so glad I found this! Glad to see the community is still alive and well
Great game, you should take away the feature where holding the erase button destroys the save though. It's been the ruin of a lot of my creations. I think instead of making heaters on the sides of energy beams (protons, photons, etc) there should just be a block that makes them 4000 degrees
Okay, I had an amazing idea for this game and I really hope you guys read this instead of it going into the "good review" sort of thing. Shaking your phone to move particles. Say you can go into settings and turn it on and off, but having it so if theres dust or water or something in the corner of the screen or sitting still, being able to shake your phone, or mouse cursor over the particle, and it will move or be thrown around the screen. I think that would be a really cool touch to the game.