Join the Sparks Crew to explore the science of the way things move with a push or a pull!

In the 2D platformer Push! Pull!! Puzzles!!!, players solve puzzles by learning basic physics concepts. Children instruct one of two heroes (Lucita or Sara) to push, pull, shove, and yank various objects in order to clear a path for Fur Blur to get to her snack. Each level starts with a planning stage, in which players choose which objects to place in the level. After this setup, players attempt to carry out the plan by using the hero to move the objects they selected. The placement and types of objects influence how the hero interacts with the puzzle. Early puzzles explore basic pushes and pulls. In later puzzles, with the transition to Sara Snap and her super strength, players can take what they’ve learned to explore bigger pushes and pulls.

Can you help Furblur get to her snacks?

Interesting Problem

How do you design a game for an IP that hasn't been finalized?

When we started development on Push Pull Puzzles, or as it was known then, Fantastic Forces, we only had a vague idea of what our TV world and characters were going to be like. As development of the game went forward so did the TV show, and we had to be very flexible to make sure we didn’t contradict a show that wasn’t written yet.

We did however, have our learning objectives so we decided to follow a bottom up design philosophy. In a bottom up design, you focus on the mechnics and content goals over the aestetic goals building out the system before you adapt elements of the world. We used the Next Generation Science Standards to create different subject areas and objectives for us to follow for our games. The pushes and pulls section suggested a focus simple physics concepts without getting into later concepts like gravity and friction so we also got a good sense of the content’s scope.

During development, we purposefully set aside a long period of pre-development where we tested with local kids, getting feedback on how they viewed pushing and pulling, and gauging their current level of understanding. This approach was inspired by Naughty Dog’s Mike Cerny Method which emphasizes extensive pre-production to test a game’s core viability while reducing spending and allowing for pivots. This time spent was well worth it and lead us into designing our main mechanics drivent by player and content needs: Pushing, Pulling, Big push (Shoving), and Big Pulls (Throwing).

Because we knew we wanted to be able to depict differing strengths of pushes, and pulls to show how it affects the distance the object will travel, we needed an in-world reason to justify it. Thankfully we had a superhero with super strength that we could highlight which allowed us to compare small pushes with big pushes in a diegetic/embodied way. This was our first real combination of science and superpower. We were able to use the fun and exciting story elements to draw kids attention to the science behind it, and it was a huge success. However, during development key parts of the characters were reordered and changed. Names changed, character designs changed, and even the show’s name changed from Hero School to Hero Elementary. Thankfully, because we used a bottom up design approach, we were able to pivot rather easily since we still had a hero with super strength to work with. After some asset swapping the game was once again in-line with the show (but never ask us why Lucita can’t just fly over the level. Let’s say it’s practice.).

As of 2020, Push Pull Puzzles has been played almost 2 million times on PBS Kids, and was recently highlighted on the PBS kids plays youtube channel!

Main Goal:

Have players understand the basic physics concepts of pushing and pulling objects of different weights and sizes. To be successful, players will have to think about how much force is needed to move different objects and how that force affects the distance the object will travel.

Client:

Twin Cities Public Television

PBS Kids