I thought that sometimes I over-analyzed things for their physics content but obviously I have a long way to go…
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/physics-of-angry-birds/
Rhett Alain, a fellow physics-blogger 🙂 discusses his favourite computer game…
This reminds me that several years ago I looked at a PhD thesis about the mathematical modelling of deformation – i.e. describing how an object like a teapot deforms (changes shape) under stress. The context was computer graphics – animated films and computer games. I don’t have the thesis with me to refer to, but I remember it drawing fairly accurately from the laws of physics but distorting them a bit for better visual impact. For example, things are given much higher breaking stresses (sometimes infinite – making them unbreakable) and elastic properties are emphasized over inelastic (so our tea pot squashes and pops back into its original shape when it hits the floor after being dropped).
The laws of physics don’t have to be changed in this way – it just looks better, apparently. So the virtual world really is superior to the real one.