This week's game is about physics middleware. You must create a game which uses the Open Dynamics Engine for a physical simulation critical to the gameplay.
This is going to be tricky. Physics lends itself to building sandboxes or providing background effects, not so much to gameplay. Not that it hasn't been done before.
For this project you should use ODE's standard C bindings (there are some C++ bindings as well, if you swing that way). The ODE Wiki provides a resonable guide to the library (see the 'Manual' section). I've provided a default install -- the ode-config script is in /afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15466-f09/bin. Also, I wrote up an example game using nest: Topple.
Please see the page on weekly games for information about how to write an artist's statement and where to turn in your completed game, as well as the standard grading scale.