Criticality Experiment
Made for Jamsepticeye game jam 2025
Theme: Death is an Opportunity
After the nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear physicists turned their attention towards peaceful ends. Everything from medicine to carbon-free electricity and even space exploration has benefited from technology that made the bomb.
You are working late at night doing criticality experiments on the demon core.
- Click to release neutrons
- An atom can absorb 1 neutron and split, emitting 2 neutrons.
- Earn coins by splitting atoms
- Longer chains are worth more
- Spend coins on upgrades
- Rank up by scoring high
- Tip: if a chain reaction is going on, stop clicking
- Download version has better audio compression
- Post your clear times in the comments!
For more info:
- The triangles are neutrons
- The circles are atoms
- You can click anywhere to release 2 neutrons
- Higher ranks make larger atoms appear that absorb more neutrons but are worth more points
- Clicking resets the chain counter (unless you have the momentum upgrade)
- The goal is to get a chain-reaction going with neutrons splitting more and more atoms
Update:
- Neutron reflectors are now a % chance to reflect
- Pierce gets reduced by atom health
- Starting rank 1, black, non-fissile material will appear that you can click on to remove
- Buffed homing turn rate
- Made momentum cheaper
Download
Comments
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29:26 love the game. Fun little go through over nuclear reactor basics.😃
May I suggest, in the future, adding a "delete save" button to allow players to start over from the beginning?
There is a delete save button on the end scene. The full game will have a proper menu.
I'm not sure how I didn't notice that before.
12:02 honestly very fun even if not for that long and you have so much more potential with this.
Keep up the great work :D
33:12 critical time
You could easily make this a full game. Go full cartoon whacky. After the night shift the scientist starts seeing criticality reactions everywhere:
A level involving traffic and traffic accidents.
A level involving people eating and digestion.
A level involving fires.
A level involving the spread of disease.
A level involving weather.
It goes on and on. Look to games like Katamari Damarci for the kind of whacky you may want to go for. Look to how people model disease outbreaks and how crowds react to building fires for real world inspiration.
when i try launching web version i get an error: "abort(CompileError: WebAssembly.instantiate(): section (code 10, "Code" extends past end of the module (length 40616750, remaining bytes 8814544) @+856286) at Error". It continues on, but I didn't want to manually copy it all cuz i can't copy and paste in the error
probably server problems. try the download version
Love this!
In the future, you may want to reconsider having white text with no drop shadow on a beige background.
Brilliant game to Slotin to my day.
This was so good and now I'm angry because I can't think of a way to follow it up
I clicked to continue playing after beating the game. Now I cannot reset my progress to play from scratch
just beat the game again and the option will reappear
Damn satisfying.
are you going to keep working on this and fully release it?
yep
increasing atom size also increases the size of the black holes which means increasing atom size becomes a bad thing after a few upgrades
also makes them easier to click on so evens out
plus they look goofy small next to large atoms
thank you so much for adding a 'keep playing' button theres so many games that would be so fun to play but have a hard end for it
only thing i think might be cool to add if you wanted to take the game farther is some upgrade that doesnt have a cap like
"When a neutron hits an atom, have a 5% chance to get +10% of the score you would normally get."
still a really fun game :)
Very entertaining gameplay 👌👌and a very interesting idea 🤯
Simple and super satisfying. The sounds and transitions are very juicy
17:30 Very fun little game. Well done :) I love the transition effect between ranks
really fun!
Actual banger game! Very fun!
Great game! Simple and very addictive!
Fun little game, the progression is a bit slow at the start and then explodes at the end, even the progression itself stays on theme with the concept :P
Great concept, highly addictive!
Got the hang of this and played it and now i really want to see this as a full thing somehow like i got addicted to this for a little bit like this is really really fun
This was beautiful. Thank you.
17:44 and i feel like my brain just melted out of my skull
14:26. Yeah, I like it.
16:50, quick fun and a cool concept. Well done!
pretty cool
18:38!!
awesome!
Very cool needs a bit more clarity in game of whats going on
does need some more on boarding
lol except it definitely doesn't.
Gameplay and Critique ;)
cool vid
18:50, very fun concept.
thanks!
14:50, wish there was more to it. Still good game. :)
maybe we'll do a post jam version
that would be awesome
17:54 - interesting concept, can't say I hate it. It was a nice little time killer
15:18 - This game has a good concept, well executed, that doesn't overstay it's welcome. Well done!
nice time!
cleared in 25 minutes, this game is very cool and i like the sound design and visual effects, especially for the rankups, a neat game with a very cool concept.
thanks!
its well deserved
The rank up animation triggers a deep memory of being a small particle vibrating with the force of the universe. 10/10, didnt know I liked being anxious about balls bouncing into blackholes.
I have to say cool concept
thanks