PROJECTILE WAR: Turning My 11th Grade Physics Classroom Into a Game Studio

By Guillermo Ithier • Physics Teacher & Game Designer
Ridgefield Park Junior/Senior High School • Version 2.0 Final (2025-11-02)

When I tell people I playtested a tabletop game in my physics classroom, they usually imagine a fun Friday activity—a break from “real work.” That’s not what happened.

PROJECTILE WAR was designed to prove a bigger idea: that a tightly tuned competitive game can teach physics thinking through play—not by pausing for lessons, but by making the player’s best move require the same habits we want in the lab: estimation, constraint-checking, probability intuition, and managing risk in a system under stress.

This is the story of how I built it, tested it in an 85-minute block schedule, and iterated it into a production-ready design.

The Core Idea: Physics as Decision Pressure, Not Decoration

PROJECTILE WAR is a 2-player tactical artillery duel built for 10–12 minute matches. Each commander controls:

• 3 Cannons (your offensive engines)
• 2 Shields (your defensive buffer, 4 HP each)
• A hand of cards (your tactical choices)

Here’s the hook: every shot creates Stress (σ) on the cannon that fired it. Push too hard and your cannon detonates. Play too cautiously and you lose tempo, get outpaced, and watch your defenses collapse.

The tagline ended up being the most honest summary of the design:

“Command your artillery. Manage the chaos.”

Because the chaos isn’t random. It’s engineered—a pressure system players can learn, predict, and exploit.

The Rule That Made the Game “Physics-Native”

Most “science games” bolt education onto the side. I wanted physics to be the gate to action.

Every offensive card has three stats:

• M (Mass)
• A (Acceleration)
• F (Force Threshold)

A shot is legal only if:

M × A ≥ F

That’s it. No lecture. No worksheet. No “now calculate…” prompt.

If you want to fire, you have to check the constraint. Players naturally start doing what physics students should do: scan values, estimate quickly, verify constraints, then commit.

It also makes the game feel fair. Outcomes are not mystical. Players understand why something works.

The System: Three Cannons, One Constant Dilemma

The entire game is built around one decision loop:

Fire vs. Maintenance vs. Utility

• Fire to break shields and gain tempo…
  but increase Stress (σ) on the cannon you used.
• Maintenance to stabilize cannons or support shields…
  but sacrifice tempo and initiative.
• Utility for rare tactical pivots (Aim, Reroll, Overhaul)…
  intentionally low count so timing matters.

The biggest design win is that Stress is tracked per cannon, not globally. With three independent σ tracks, you don’t just ask “Should I push?” You ask:

• Which cannon can afford the risk?
• When do I rotate?
• When do I intentionally overheat to close a game?

That’s the kind of tension I wanted: not complicated rules, but a simple system that creates complex decisions.

Why I Chose 2d6

If the physics constraint makes shots legible, the resolution system needed to make risk learnable.

I used 2d6 because it produces a bell curve—most rolls cluster around the middle. In play, that means students quickly develop a feel for:

• what “likely” looks like
• what “risky” looks like
• when pushing at higher σ becomes mathematically reckless

That matters because PROJECTILE WAR is fundamentally about graduated risk, not swingy chaos. You’re not flipping coins—you’re managing a curve.

The Classroom as a Real-World Playtest Lab

This wasn’t a theoretical exercise. I tested the game where it had to survive: my 11th grade physics classroom at Ridgefield Park Jr/Sr HS, on a block schedule.

The Playtest Format (85 minutes)

Setup & distribution (5 min)
Decks out, tokens placed, pairs assigned.

Teach + first-turn demo (12 min)
Core loop, legality rule, what σ/Φ represent, then a full model turn.

Supervised matches (18 min)
I circulated and logged confusion points, illegal plays, and pacing.

Independent matches (35 min)
Minimal intervention. Multiple games per pair. This phase mattered most—if the design only works with me hovering, it’s not ready.

Debrief + quick survey (10 min)
Clarity, fun, agency, confusing rule, improvement suggestions.

Pack-up & note capture (5 min)
I consolidated observations into iteration tasks.

This structure let students play multiple times, which is critical: the game isn’t about “figuring it out once.” It’s about improving your decisions as you internalize the system.

What I Measured (Because “Fun” Isn’t a Metric)

To iterate correctly, I tracked specific signals:

• Learnability: time to first legal action; repeated questions
• Pace: match length vs 10–12 minute target
• Decision quality: cannon rotation frequency; Maintenance timing
• Clarity: which rules caused repeated stoppage (σ, Φ, legality, damage flow)
• Balance signals: shield break patterns; cannon losses; runaway leads vs recovery

This is the part I love as both teacher and designer: the classroom forces you to care about usability. If students don’t understand it, the design is the problem—not the players.

The Two Friction Points That Actually Mattered

1) Players delayed the Maintenance decision

Students would play a Maintenance card, then pause and debate whether it was Shield Support or Cannon Support.

That sounds small, but it introduced ambiguity and slowed the entire table.

Fix: Maintenance now requires choosing the mode immediately on play.
No “hold it in limbo.” Make the decision, own it, move on.

2) Players missed σ/Φ updates in fast turns

Once the game started flowing, the pace became a double-edged sword—players occasionally forgot the bookkeeping at the end of a turn.

Fix: the reference sheet now includes a strict end-of-turn checklist:

Update σ/Φ → Apply damage/HP → Discard → Draw to 5

This single UI change reduced table stoppages without changing the core system.

What I’m Proud Of

PROJECTILE WAR succeeded at the exact thing I built it to do:

• It stayed fast.
• It stayed competitive.
• It stayed readable.
• It created tension without complexity.
• It survived repeated independent play in a classroom environment.

And—most importantly—it created a very specific kind of student engagement:
not “this is educational,” but “I want a rematch.”

That’s where learning lives.

What the Game Teaches Without Announcing It

Students practice:

• constraint checking (M × A ≥ F)
• arithmetic fluency under time pressure
• probability intuition through repeated 2d6 decisions
• systems thinking via σ accumulation and cannon rotation
• tradeoff reasoning (tempo vs survivability)

But they experience it as strategy, not homework.

Final Snapshot (v2.0 Final)

PROJECTILE WAR

• 2 players • 10–12 minutes • medium complexity
• 49 cards: 38 Offensive, 8 Maintenance, 3 Utility
• 3 cannons + σ tracking, 2 shields (4 HP each)
• Entropy-driven endgame (σ/Φ) prevents stalling
• Validated through simulations and classroom playtests

Status: Production Ready (2025-11-02)

What’s Next

If you’d like the full card list, numeric tuning, complete ruleset, or the classroom revision artifacts, I can provide them on request. This post is the overview—but the real value is in the proof: a game that holds up under real players, real constraints, and real time pressure.

PROJECTILE WAR was designed in the same place it was tested:
my physics classroom—where every system has consequences.

— Guillermo Ithier