Circuit Breaker
Circuit Breaker is a strategy game where the players fight not with armies, but by placing different buildings. The player controls sentient electronics components that make war upon each other. The goal of the game is to destroy the opponent’s CPU.
The players build nodes by using energy. Energy is obtained via various means in the game, like extractor nodes. You can see your total energy pool as a bar on the bottom of the screen. You can also see your current energy income above the bar and your opponent’s income below the bar. It takes a fixed amount of energy to build each node. You can see what that amount it by pressing the corresponding button above the playing field and looking at the hilited section of the energy bar. Be careful with how you use your energy, without any income, you’re a sitting duck. Conversely, the best way to beat an opponent to to force them to waste their energy.
You can select a node to build by clicking the apropriate button or by pressing the number 1-5 hotkeys. There are 5 different node types that the players can build and one that that can’t – the CPU. You can find out more about them by reading the tooltips. Here is an overview of the nodes in the game:
CPU
This is the node from which it all starts. The goal of the game is to destroy the opponent’s CPU, while protecting yours. The CPU has a lot of health, the most of any nodes. It provides you with a starting energy income of 4 and gives you a large build radius to start.
Extender
The extender allows you to build in new and exciting places. By default, you can only build around your CPU. As you place extenders, that build area will be increased. All nodes must be connected to an extender or the CPU. If the parent node is destroyed, everything that’s connected to it goes as well! This is why you want to protect the extenders that have a lot connected to them. Each extender can support 3 other nodes.
Extractor
The extractor funnels power out of resource sites and into your energy pool. Each extractor that you place will give you 4 energy income. Extractors can only be placed on resource locations.
Beam Emitter
The beam emitter is the simplest way to damage your opponent. Simply place the beam emitter and aim it toward whatever you want dead. After a while, a high-powered laser will be blasted at the enemy; they take some time to reach full power, however. Each beam emitter reduces your energy income by 2. Be careful if you place the beam emitter too close to the enemy, it will damage itself.
Shield
Shields allow you to stop enemy beam emitters. Place a shield in the way of the beam and then aim the shield toward the beam. The shield will block the beam and not take any damage itself. There is a price for this, however. For each beam that a shield blocks, you lose 2 energy flow. In additing, should your shield stop being hit by any beams, you will lose 1 energy flow.
Absorber
The absorber is a superior way to stop beam attacks. By placing the absorber in the beam’s path, not only is the beam stopped, but you also get 2 energy flow per beam. There is a danger to doing this, however. Whenever an absorber absorbs damage, it not only generates energy, but it also damages everything around it. This can have unintended consequences.
You can experiment with the different nodes in the Very Easy mode. The computer will not try too hard to beat you.
Thanks To
The makers of the following libraries that were used when making Circuit Breaker:
SDL
SDL_mixer
SDL_Image
Sound effects were taken from
www.freesound.org and are licensed under Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 license. See
http://www.freesound.org/legal.php for details. The following freesound contributors had their effects used:
Jovica
vitriolix
tigersound
hello_flowers
buzzbox
ljudman
knarmahfox
zuben
The text fonts were downloaded from
www.aenigmafonts.com Circuit Breaker
Circuit Breaker is a strategy game where the players fight not with armies, but by placing different buildings. The player controls sentient electronics components that make war upon each other. The goal of the game is to destroy the ...
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