Chain Reaction

Place ramps, dominoes and fans to guide a ball into the goal when you press Run. The catch: the ball must arrive with energy under the level's cap, so steep, slamming routes fail, efficient, gentle routing wins.

• Pick a tool and place it: draw a ramp between two points, drop dominoes or fans
• Press Run to simulate; Undo, Clear or start a New level anytime
• Land the ball in the goal under the energy cap to clear it
• Shallow ramps bleed speed; steep drops add too much energy

• Daily puzzle, the same level for everyone today
• Practice, fresh levels you can advance through

• Desktop: click two points to draw a ramp; click to drop a domino or fan; click Run
• Phone & tablet: tap to draw and place pieces, then tap Run

• Trade height for length, a longer, shallower path sheds energy before the goal
• Use fans to redirect without adding the speed a drop would
• Test early and often with Run, then Undo the pieces that overshoot the cap

Chain Reaction builds physics intuition for energy by having you design contraptions that conserve and shed energy to reach a goal.

• Skills: energy conservation, kinetic and potential energy, cause and effect, physics problem-solving
• Best for: roughly grades 7–12 (ages 12+)
• For parents & teachers: makes energy transfer something you engineer, not just read about.

Guiding a ball to a goal with ramps, dominoes and fans is the Rube Goldberg machine as a puzzle.

The original constraint is an energy cap: the ball must arrive under a limit, so steep slamming routes fail.

That turns a contraption into physics. Conservation of energy means height converts to speed, so a tall drop is not a free shortcut — it is energy you will have to shed before the finish, and the elegant route is the one that never gains it.

Chain Reaction is a contraption-building physics puzzle about conserving and shedding energy. It's an original, free browser game built in-house for PlayPendium.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.