QuarkQuest: the free particle-physics game about the Standard Model
Start here: Zoom In · Zoom from a drop of water down to the quarks inside a proton. · About 3 minutes
Level 1 zooms from a drop of water to the quarks inside a proton in 11 quick questions — about 3 minutes. From there, QuarkQuest tours the universe's smallest building blocks across 14 levels: build protons and neutrons, meet the leptons and force carriers, and explore antimatter, the four forces, and the Higgs. Aimed at middle and early high school, it's free and has no ads. Diffy measures product use to improve the service.
What kids learn
- The building blocks of matter: six quarks and six leptons in three generations
- How quark charges add up to make protons and neutrons
- The four fundamental forces, their strengths, ranges, and carrier particles
- What antimatter is, and why particles and antiparticles annihilate
- How beta decay conserves charge and produces a neutrino
- The story of the early universe from the first second to the first stars
How it works
Each level opens with a short narrated tutorial you can skip, then a step-by-step multiple-choice quiz with animated visuals. Every question pairs tap-to-choose options with a stage that illustrates the idea — zooming through scales, assembling a nucleon, or ordering the epochs of the Big Bang. A teaching note follows each answer, and stars reflect accuracy.
Kids can play without signing in; guest stars stay until you reload or close the page. A grown-up signs in once and adds a player for each kid, so QuarkQuest's stars and progress save to your account and follow you to any device.
Also try
- FeynLabAges 13–18
Read Feynman diagrams, build them step by step and test the rules.
Play FeynLab → - AtomForgeAges 11–16
Explore atoms, ions and molecules in 14 quick chemistry levels.
Play AtomForge →
Ready to play QuarkQuest?
It's free and has no ads. Diffy measures product use to improve the service. Ages 12–16.