If you didn’t play with the Sodaconstructor website in the early years of this century, you were probably getting some proper work done.
Launched by British creative agency Soda in 1998, it was an online physics simulator where people could create, play with and share virtual models made of masses and springs.
The site won a BAFTA Best Interactive Art award in 2001, with nearly 300,000 users creating just under 1m models using the site since then. Now its creators want to relaunch it as an app for Android and iOS devices.
Soda has built a “proof of concept version” of Sodaconstructor as native and web apps for modern mobile devices, and is seeking £25,000 on crowdfunding website Kickstarter to finish it off and import that million-model database into it.
Why? To stop them being lost to current and future generations of internet users. “The game runs on Java, and is slowly losing compatibility with modern browsers due to Java’s security issues,” explains its Kickstarter listing. “Unless we act now, Sodaconstructor will soon become unusable!”
If successful, the new app will be launched under Soda’s umbrella Sodaplay brand, which also includes racing simulation Sodarace and children’s creativity site Moovl.
Soda will make the iOS and HTML5 versions of Sodaconstructor, but the company has also set “stretch goals” including a native Android version of that, and new versions of Sodarace and Moovl if it raises more than £25,000.
Other stretch goals include customised educational versions for children, new learning and physics simulations, and “a virtual world of free ranging Sodaplay models”.
“We see a bright future for Sodaplay and have a rough roadmap for how we are are going to build on our achievements and educate and entertain large new audiences,” explained the company in the Kickstarter listing.
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