Physics sandbox

Physics sandbox is a type of sandbox where the environments or player creations being manipulated are dictated through accurate or custom physics simulations. As sandboxes, these games commonly feature building or creating mechanisms or scenarios and watching how physics plays out on the creation. The genre has a lot of overlap with physics puzzles, with Besiege (2020) and many bridge building games in the vein of Bridge Constructor (2012) being good examples of these. Due to the satisfying visuals of physics simulations, destruction is a common theme, with the game Teardown (2022) capitalizing off of this. In the early 2000s, a unique, particle-based sub-genre of physics sandbox know as powder game emerged.