Keep the computer alive
A real-time traffic game set inside a computer. Draw copper wire between transistors and microchips, keep colored data signals flowing at the rate every receiver demands, and hold the system together as new components, colors and congestion arrive wave after wave.
Four pieces, one rule
You only ever draw wire and remove it. Everything else on the board follows from these four pieces.
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Copper wire
Orthogonal traces you draw and pull back up, cell by cell.
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Data signals
Colored packets emitted by transistors, one every six seconds.
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Chip receivers
Ports that accept exactly one color and drain power until fed.
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Congestion
Junction contention, follow distance, and resistors that throttle a cell.
Four moments from one run
The board starts at twelve cells by eight with a single color, and grows by one cell on every side at each wave transition.
How it plays
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Draw
Drag from cell to cell to lay copper. Two points per new cell, or one when you run it alongside wire that was already there.
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Watch
Transistors emit a signal every six seconds, each one routing itself to the reachable matching receiver with the least power left.
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Reroute
When a receiver starts pulsing, cut wire and redraw. Signals already in flight recalculate forward — they just never turn back.