Science in video games

Talk to us today about science in video games

Yes, on the occasion of the jam of the scientific game that will be held at the end of next week in several cities in France, and in particular in the city of Lille, on the campus of the scientific city in Villeneuve-D’Ascq, where it is organized by the Leliad Education Center for Innovation.

What is science jam? How do you translate into French?

So as far as I know, don’t translate. Jazz fans know that jam is an improvisation session. Thus, a game jam is an improvisation session about the video game, a hack, or if you prefer a marathon in which each team must create a video game.

And what is scientific about it?

Well, the science game jam team includes, in addition to programmers and graphic designers, a scientist, in this case a PhD student, whose goal is to create a video game inspired by his thesis topic.

And what will you give in the end?

Well, in previous versions there was for example Cold Vibes, where you are in the shoes of a glaciologist who has fallen into a glacier and you have to find the way out. Or a photon bob, where you have to direct the light so that it goes into an optical fiber. And believe me, it’s not that simple, because the laws of physics are clear: light travels only in a straight line, so you have to use mirrors and other optics to avoid obstacles.

But you are talking about the laws of physics. Video game makers don’t really care about it, the point of a video game is not to be realistic!

So think again. There are plenty of good reasons to put real science in a video game. And in fact, there has always been. Quite simply because the game world should at least adhere to reality. For example, in a video game, you can fall. And if you can fall, there is gravity. And it’s actually the laws of gravity that are used to simulate falls or calculate the trajectories of objects being thrown in video games. There are sometimes deviations from reality, to make the game more fun, like Mario’s double jump in Super Mario. But on the contrary, there are games that want to be as faithful as possible to the laws of the real world, such as flight simulators, including space flight simulators. And the trend today is precisely to put more and more science, especially physics, into video games.

How is that ?

So there I have to tell you about David Lubri, a physicist some of you may know from his YouTube channel “Amazing Science,” and from whom I drew a lot of inspiration for today’s column. And if I’m talking about him to you, it’s simply because he was scientific director for a few years at Ubisoft, which is a French video game designer.

Scientific director in a video game innovation company! And what is its role?

Using science as a source of inspiration for what is called gameplay in video games, i.e. scenario, plot and gameplay. For the player, it is a unique gaming experience, and beyond that, it can help him to better understand certain scientific concepts. In fact, playing in virtual worlds allows us to better understand the world around us! Suddenly we learn and gain experience by playing! Cool, isn’t it?