Games can be divided by verisimilitude into these categories (1):
- Abstract games, such as Chinese Checkers, Jenga, or 99 Blocks.
- Iconic games, such as card games, chess, or Electric Box, which will be played by us today.
- Incoherent world games, such as Super Mario or Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2.
- Coherent world games, such as Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto, or Mirror’s Edge 2D.
- Staged games, such as ScaryGirl game and console games inside of it.
Electric Box uses animated icons to illustrate the law of conservation of energy which states that any form of energy can be transformed into another form. You can transform electricity to light, steam, wind, laser, or stream of water, and then transform that to back to electricity. The gameplay is like in the TIM – you have to lay out the things from inventor to a gridded field so that the energy from the source of electricity reaches the target.
The main strategy for playing could be finding pairs of things which use the same material for the energy transformations to electricity (for example, a lamp uses electricity when shining and then solar energy generator creates the electricity) and laying them at electricity cables supporting correct directions (for example, water drops down, steam goes up. wind blows horizontally, and light spread in four directions).
Animation and several moving objects like a conveyer, a magnet, and fan make this puzzle game look dynamic. Nevertheless, it would be absolutely possible to play this game on a gridded cardboard using cards with symbols. Probably, the prototype was created like that.
I completed almost all game, but got stuck in the last level and, in addition, I found a bug there where a convey carrying objects goes through some other objects in a strange specific case.
The creators foresaw that 15 prepared levels will be too few and made it possible for players to create levels themselves. You can try some custom levels of other players or my own masterpiece (copy the code and paste into the input field which will apear when you click on the link “Enter Code”):
Once I told to myself that if I have a house somewhen in the future, it will certainly use renewable energy from the sun, wind, stream or surf of water. Electric Box reminds me that dream.
(1) According to the book “Half-real” by Jesper Juul.
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