Meet the lowly carbon atom and his friends. Although they don't know it, yet, they have so much potential. So many ways to interact. They would love to be able to retire to the Land of Greater Entropy where they could relax for awhile. But to get there, they need to solve some puzzles.

This is a puzzle-based game in which you build molecules out of the basic elements in order to use the properties of the compounds thusly constructed to solve the puzzles at hand and usher the heroic elements to the puzzle exit.

The game has a nanoscopic and macroscopic play zoom level. Molecules are built using elements found in the particular puzzle level in the nanoscopic zoom level, and then the products created are manipulated in the larger world at the macroscopic level. If the right conditions are present the molecules can be disassembled and recombined in new ways to solve another subset of a puzzle; useful if there is a shortage of atoms available for use on the page.

Along the way, the carbons meet up with other basic elements, and combine to form molecules with new properties. You might combine two hydrogen and one oxygen for water, which you might then fill a tub basin with. Or perhaps you boil it by creating a flammable chemical, perhaps octane. Explosive Nitrogen compounds are required in some levels to knock down walls and open up new paths. The background environments of each puzzle are shown, including temperature and humidity levels, exposure to air, etc.

As the game progresses, you discover and utilize water, ice, combustion, steam, salt, steel, rust, hydrochloric acid, diamond, carbon nanotubes, electrical conductivity, superconductivity, unstable compounds, and a host of other possibilities. To speed up gameplay, compounds already discovered in previous levels, if the right elements are present, don't have to be reconstructed, but become available in your toolbox right away.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 30 2011

Inspired by... Periodic_20Table_20Poker
Excellent idea and annotations [RayfordSteele, Mar 30 2011]

Conway's Game of Life http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
[sqeaketh the wheel, Mar 30 2011]

World of Goo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo
Great fun. [RayfordSteele, Mar 30 2011]

Category addition suggestion: Computer: Game: Puzzle
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 30 2011


Conway's Game of Life <link> but with real chemistry rules.
-- sqeaketh the wheel, Mar 30 2011



random, halfbakery