Author: Kyle Plantz / Source: Science News
A physicist, a gamer and two editors walk into a bar. No, this isn’t the setup for some joke. After work one night, a few Science News staffers tried out a new board game, Subatomic. This deck-building game combines chemistry and particle physics for an enjoyable — and educational — time.
Subatomic is simple to grasp: Players use quark and photon cards to build protons, neutrons and electrons. With those three particles, players then construct chemical elements to score points. Scientists are the wild cards: Joseph J. Thomson, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Marie Curie and other Nobel laureates who discovered important things related to the atom provide special abilities or help thwart other players.
The game doesn’t shy away from difficult or unfamiliar concepts. Many players might be unfamiliar with quarks, a group of elementary particles. But after a few rounds, it’s ingrained in your brain that, for example, two up quarks and one down quark create a proton. And Subatomic includes a handy booklet that explains in easy-to-understand terms the science behind the game. The physicist in our group vouched for the game’s accuracy but had one qualm: Subatomic claims that two photons, or particles of light, can create an electron. That’s theoretically possible, but scientists have yet to confirm it in the lab.
The mastermind behind Subatomic is John Coveyou, who has a master’s degree in energy, environmental and chemical engineering. As the founder and CEO of Genius Games, he has created six other games, including Ion (SN: 5/30/15, p. 29) and Linkage (SN: 12/27/14, p. 32). Next year, he’ll add a periodic table game to the list. Because Science News has reviewed several of his games, we decided to talk with Coveyou about where he…
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