The Powder Toy - July 2021

Get the latest version from the Powder Toy website.

To use online features such as saving, you need to register an account. You can also visit the official TPT forum.

Have you ever wanted to blow something up? Or maybe you always dreamt of operating an atomic power plant? Do you have a will to develop your own CPU? The Powder Toy lets you to do all of these, and even more!

The Powder Toy is a free physics sandbox game, which simulates air pressure and velocity, heat, gravity and a countless number of interactions between different substances! The game provides you with various building materials, liquids, gases and electronic components which can be used to construct complex machines, guns, bombs, realistic terrains and almost anything else. You can then mine them and watch cool explosions, add intricate wirings, play with little stickmen or operate your machine. You can browse and play thousands of different saves made by the community or upload your own – we welcome your creations!

There is a Lua API – you can automate your work or even make plugins for the game. The Powder Toy is free and the source code is distributed under the GNU General Public License, so you can modify the game yourself or help with development. TPT is compiled using scons.

Build instructions

See the Powder Toy Development Help section on the main page of the wiki.

Thanks

• Stanislaw K Skowronek - Designed the original
• Simon Robertshaw
• Skresanov Savely
• cracker64
• Catelite
• Bryan Hoyle
• Nathan Cousins
• jacksonmj
• Felix Wallin
• Lieuwe Mosch
• Anthony Boot
• Me4502
• MaksProg
• jacob1
• mniip
• LBPHacker

Libraries and other assets used

• BSON
• bzip2
• FFTW
• JsonCpp
• libcurl
• Lua
• LuaJIT
• LuaSocket
• Mallangche
• SDL
• zlib

Instructions

Click on the elements with the mouse and draw in the field, like in MS Paint. The rest of the game is learning what happens next.

Controls

Key	Action
TAB	Switch between circle/square/triangle brush
Space	Pause
Q / Esc	Quit
Z	Zoom
S	Save stamp (use with Ctrl when STK2 is out)
L	Load last saved stamp
K	Stamp library
0-9	Set view mode
P / F2	Save screenshot as .png
E	Bring up element search
F	Pause and step to next frame
G	Increase grid size
Shift + G	Decrease grid size
H	Show/Hide HUD
Ctrl + H / F1	Show intro text
D / F3	Debug mode (use with Ctrl when STK2 is out)
I	Invert Pressure and Velocity map
W	Cycle gravity modes (use with Ctrl when STK2 is out)
Y	Cycle air modes
B	Enter decoration editor menu
Ctrl + B	Toggle decorations on/off
N	Toggle Newtonian Gravity on/off
U	Toggle ambient heat on/off
Ctrl + I	Install powder toy, for loading saves/stamps by double clicking
Backtick	Toggle console
=	Reset pressure and velocity map
Ctrl + =	Reset Electricity
[	Decrease brush size
]	Increase brush size
Alt + [	Decrease brush size by 1
Alt + ]	Increase brush size by 1
Ctrl + C/V/X	Copy/Paste/Cut
Ctrl + Z	Undo
Ctrl + Y	Redo
Ctrl + Cursor drag	Rectangle
Shift + Cursor drag	Line
Middle click	Sample element
Alt + Left click	Sample element
Mouse scroll	Change brush size
Ctrl + Mouse scroll	Change vertical brush size
Shift + Mouse scroll	Change horizontal brush size
Shift + R	Horizontal mirror for selected area when pasting stamps
Ctrl + Shift + R	Vertical mirror for selected area when pasting stamps
R	Rotate selected area counterclockwise when pasting stamps

Command Line

Command	Description	Example
scale:SIZE	Change window scale factor	scale:2
kiosk	Fullscreen mode
proxy:SERVER[:PORT]	Proxy server to use	proxy:wwwcache.lancs.ac.uk:8080
open FILE	Opens the file as a stamp or game save
ddir DIRECTORY	Directory used for saving stamps and preferences
ptsave:SAVEID	Open online save, used by ptsave: URLs	ptsave:2198
disable-network	Disables internet connections
redirect	Redirects output to stdout.txt / stderr.txt