Electric RTS/Puzzle
Idea Type
Game mechanics
Summary
Construct a base and mount an attack to destroy your opponent’s. Bases are constructed out of
components powered by electricity. Waste energy is given off as heat and if a component gets too
hot, it explodes.
This can be implemented as a puzzle game or a competitive multiplayer battle. Current thinking
is to have puzzle single-layer mode (teaches you how to play) and then freeform battle mode.
Concepts
The key concepts we hope to teach are:
 Electricity (voltage, current and resistance/ parallel and series circuits).
 Energy (conversion between electric, thermal, kinetic, radiation, mass)
 Logic (switches, and/or gates) - maybe
There may be scope at more advanced level to introduce relays, transistors and more complex
logic.
Components
These are a set of components I think necessary to make a good puzzle system.
Cell
The red and blue connectors indicate the direction of voltage.
Constructor
This is required to create new components on your circuit and is the part of your base which
must be protected at all costs (think of it like the King in chess)
Wire
Used to connect components together
Switch
[no diagram available]
Can be used to switch a connection on and off easily (perhaps by clicking on it) .
Cannon
This will create a cannon ball (which grows in its top right corner) and then shoots it. The outer
two connectors need a voltage across them to construct the ball. When it is complete (in size) a
voltage appear across one of the other inner connectors (and the 0v) to signal it is ready. By
connecting that to the other inner connector, the ball is fired.
A straight connection like this will make the ball fire as soon as it is ready, but the signal can be
intercepted so (e.g.) shoot it when a switch is clicked or a laser beam is broken.
You can also shoot balls out before they are ready by feeding a current into the “other” connector
(they will just be smaller).
Ball
The ball created by the cannon ball
Sponge
If a ball hits a sponge, the impact gets converted into electricity. Additionally, the sponge starts to
dissolve the ball and (more slowly) turns this into electricity also.
Laser
Can send out a beam in any direction. Can be used to destroy things (by heating them up) or
simply to detect if something has broken the beam,
Solar Cell
Create a voltage across terminals when light hits it. This can be used to transfer power
(wirelessly) across distances, or to detect if something has crossed a beam (e.b. to trigger a
cannon ball) or as a defence against enemy lasers (use them to generate your own power).
Mirrors
Used to deflect lasers
By putting a volage across differnet terminals, the mirror will angle in different directions.
Rock
This is found around the environment and cannot be destroyed.
Enemy constructor
This will typically appear in puzzles as the thing to be destroyed:
Building
The skin to the game is that your constructor can send signals to little nano-bots that live all over
your wires and components. This enables you to construct new components (as long as they are
attached to your existing ones).
You can also deconstruct components which you are attached to (perhaps replace them with a
wire?)
You give instructions to your nano-bot by dragging icons of components onto to the world (the
nonbots then set about building them for real).
Building requires energy. There is a non-realistic energy to mass conversion which allows you
nanobots to convert energy directly into matter (and vice versa when deconstructing things).
Size of components
You can choose to make you components any size. Small ones are fast to build and take less
energy. Large ones are more powerful and take longer to build.
Current and voltage
Large components also require more current to power them (erm..or voltage). If you put a large
component on a small wire, it is likely to draw too much current and the wire will heat up.
Energy
Emergy is all modled correctly so electrical energy can be converted into mass (in a non-realistic
way) but can also be converted into kinectic energy (to fire a cannon ball) or radiation energy (in
the case of a laser).
Heat
All components can heat up due to excessive current flow. They can also heat up from something
crashing into them or by absorbing radiation.
Heat is dissipated through the wires. The Rocks act as heat sinks (maybe)
If something gets too hot, then it explodes. Then all its stored energy is radiated out as heat to be
absorbed by things around it – this might in tern cause them to explode by a chain reaction.
Connecting to enemy circuits
It seems that you should be able to connect to your enemies circuits and cause havoc – however,
this has lots of consequences and needs to be thought through
Example puzzle
On this example the enemy constructor is situated up at the top right corner. Its cell is powering
cannons which grow balls and fire them at regular intervals.
The player’s constructor is at the bottom left.
The player could try and build come cannons themselves to intercept the enemy ones (in order to
get past them). Or they could try and make a sponge to absorb a ball when it hits. Or try and build
a laser or cannon a little past the path of the balls where it can shoot the enemy (of course, any
connections to this would need to be continuously rebuilt as they are destroyed by the enemy
balls).
Real numbers
The player should be able to select a size of component and know exactly its voltage requirement
and maximum current and resistance. They should be able to full calculate exactly how big all the
components need to be in order to get maximum efficiency and minimal heat.
Visualisation
It is important that the player can SEE the electricity and the heat as they are playing,
Current thinking is that heat is shown by the wires/components glowing from black to red as
they heat up.
The current is shown by the speed of little speckly blue dots moving along the wire and voltage is
shown by the colour of those dots (brighter blue means higher voltage).
This diagram shows voltage high on the right and low on the left. The materials is hot on the
bottom and cold on the top.
The following circuit diagrams look a bit different to the ones above – in the game there will just
be one view of them.
This shows a cell with nothing attached the dots will not be flowing and the wires are black cold:
This shows a cell being short circuited. The wires are glowing red hot (perhaps about to
explode). The dots will be racing around the circuit.
Here is a more normal circuit with a cell powering a cannon. There is a little heat, but not much .
The dots are flowing round smoothly.
There is a small voltage change along the wires, but the majority happen over the cannon.
We could also think about showing resistance but how many dots are allowed?