I'm an (nuclear) engineer! by zgragselus
Information
You have to control nuclear power plant. Calculation corresponds to real physics!
You choose configuration - number of control and fuel rods. The more fuel rods you have, the faster nuclear reaction will be. After start you can operate control rods, inserting rods will slow down reaction - better not to have lack of them.
Do not exceed critical tepmerature - there is no way back, if you do!
You have three days (three minutes of game time), weather is changing and have influence to amount of water (which is necessary for cooling). Your task is to generate power (and in the first place, not to expolode), will you make it to top ten score?
Have fun playing!
Executables information & Requirements:
There are two different versions - first of them are executables (Windows - which should be preferred, Linux and OS X - I built Linux and OS X version using Unity on Windows - so no guarantees about them), second is WebGL build.
Downloadable ones are better quality, with full resolution textures, more complex shader effects and post processing, and generally the gameplay will be more smooth. WebGL build is optimized, yet still somewhat a lot slower compared to downloadable ones.
So, if you can - please try downloadable version. If not, please give us feedback about WebGL version.
High scores are saved when you win the game (that means if you don't blow up), although only from executable versions. WebGL version has some problems in communication with our server. This may be fixed in following day or two (depending on whether the fix doesn't mean changing security options we have on our server).
Credits
Game was created mainly by me - Vilem "Zgragselus" Otte - https://twitter.com/VilemOtte
Along with special thanks to second author, my sister - for great game idea, help with sounds and user interface.
Screenshots
Ratings
| Overall | 488th | 3.264⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 641th | 2.811⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 120th | 3.654⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 273th | 3.722⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 311th | 3.815⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 522th | 2.48⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 580th | 1.93⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 628th | 2.816⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 61🗳️ | 72🗨️ |
You should be glad you survived. You let explode nuclear reactor, this will hurt, sorry :-) We made our best to make it real.
I really like the explosion ! not the sound that followed though :/
You can find small tutorial in menu.
Small hint: You can use different rod configuration - number of control and fuel rods have influence on reactor behavior. I think more than six fuel rods is insane (you may not manage to cool it down). Also watch generated power, try to keep more than 1000MW all the time.
Also you made me deaf
Day 2: reactor exploded instantly.
Day 3: reactor exploded instantly.
Day 4: decided filling the whole reactor matrix was not a good idea. 9MW generated. Reactor exploded.
Success.
@everbrave The game isn't broken, the idea was brought to me on Friday and I've started with putting up game logic together. The actual calculation simulates (simplified) reactor chamber (and energy generating machinery - e.g. turbine, generator and condensator). The reaction speed is of course increased.
Actual simulation works with probabilities and free neutrons in reactor core. It even goes as far as simulating simplified nuclear science (rods are composed of 4% U235 and 96% U238 ... during reaction Uranium isotopes undergoes some action and change into other elements (generating power - either through fission reaction or gamma wave). It is not accurate (simulation would be too complex to control), but at least there was some physical basis that was simplified (and I guess I got myself on CIA list by going through various documents I've read about nuclear science in past time and last weekend too...).
In the end all I output to user is core output temperature and generated energy.
@james-dunlap Congratulations. Yes, music is sadly missing (we had no time nor skills to create some - but I hope we will manage for next Ludum Dare). I will most likely put some high score result and statistics into post mortem which I'm planning in a week or so.
Thanks!
Note, it actually simulates nuclear reaction (as I described earlier), so it needs a bit of trying to "get it into hand".
I did blow it up once which was pretty fun! The graphics are also really good, all the models and textures look great. I always like the addition of high scores in jam games so well done for including that. I think some idea about how the fuel rod placement affects the reactor would be nice, but I guess that could be left for the player to figure out. Maybe an extra controllable slider or two would help for later levels.
Really enjoyed it, nice job!
Edit: It also took me a couple of tries to get the game to work properly. It got stuck on a screen with the default unity skybox. Might have been my antivirus deleting things but something to watch for.
All i see is the default unity skybox before it turned black.
It's also very nice to have written a complete tutorial in this time frame! There wasn't a lot of explanations for the matrix but it didn't trouble me. I liked experimenting with various configurations.
By the way, great graphics!
Sincerely yours, the North Korean Center For 100% Totally Peaceful Applications of Nuclear Technology.
Secondary, WHERE IS THE MUSHROOM CLOUD?!
- should have a reset button.
- the sfx is very good
- your game used 2G of memory. is it a bug??
Some suggestions if you're planning to do more on it:
* I would have loved some more things to tweak and balance,
* Maybe an iterative level system where you can tweak the control rods after surviving a day?
* The effect the weather had could have been more noticable, although maybe that goes against the realism :P
@fangzhangmnm Original idea (on early Saturday) was to have more effects in there (and yes, making some parts like pipes glow red was an idea), including mushroom cloud. Yet due to time constraints I had to give up on them.
@Dolash Yes, in the end you control only 1 parameter - which is simple enough to understand and play with. Adding more complexity would indeed make this closer to simulation (yet from past Ludum Dares I have experience that more complex game means less players who understand it = less feedback). Although as you stated, it is good starting point - yet I think I will pursue some different game in following month(s).
@duzzondrums More things to tweak could indeed make the game last longer (although would introduce additional complexity, which scares me since Ludum Dare 37 - where we got quite harshly criticized for making complex game). Weather effect was quite hard to balance (in the end I decided to go the way that makes it easier to win).
I find the idea interesting but it is kinda boring if you can only control one slider. I'm not even sure how exactly this slider works: are the control rods down (i.e. they slow down the reaction) when the slider is up? While the weather is nice to look at, does it have any game play mechanic other than refill the water? Also I didn't really figure out, how the matrix setup influences the simulation. If I put in too much uranium, everything goes boom, but does the positions influence anything? But I found the graphics quite nice.
The graphics were nice, though the shadows were pretty rough. It seems like a lot went into the physics of it that I just didn't get.
Not a bad game at all. I also played through your game from last Jam. The running one. I really liked that one.
Overall, nice job.
*I sure hope real life nuclear engineers don't optimize core temperatures manually!*
About the only issue I have is the lack of optimization. Runs pretty bad on my (granted, old) computer. The WebGL version especially suffers from bad performance. It doesn't quite look the part so you probably just have needlessly high poly counts in the 3D models or the terrain.
Good work!