Chain Reaction is a captivating real-time multiplayer board game, also known as Critical Mass and Atoms, that hooks players with its addictive gameplay.
During the game, players take turns adding units, or blobs, of their color to either an empty cell or a cell that they already occupy. Once the number of blobs in a cell reaches the number of neighboring cells minus two, the blobs will explode. This will cause the blobs to add one more unit to each neighboring cell and leave the original cell empty. If the neighboring cells also have enough blobs, then they will explode as well, leading to a chain reaction. The chain reaction also causes the blobs affected by it to change color, which is how players take other players' cells. The game is won when a player eliminates all their opponents because the board gradually fills up with each move.
There are many great features in Lee Haywood's Chain Reaction game. It provides a high-quality computer player for a single opponent and is suitable for between two and six players. The game has an excellent graphical implementation and can be played in either window or full-screen mode. Players can adjust the screen resolution to play on massive boards. The game has audio support for sound cards and simple beeps or bells. A grid editor is included, and the game automatically moves the mouse pointer back to the current player's last position.
Other features of the game include indicators for each player and the whole game's overall progress. Players can enter and save their names and choose their favorite color to play with. There are even foreground and background 'skins' that players can change to customize their experience. Saved states can be automatically loaded when the program starts.
There are many game options in Lee Haywood's Chain Reaction game. It provides players with the ability to undo and redo all moves, save games in progress, and resume play later. Players can stick with their favorite color even as the order of play changes. Additionally, sound can be turned on and off during a game for both samples and beeps.
To enjoy Lee Haywood's Chain Reaction game, you will need SDL if compiling from sources and FPC (Free Pascal Compiler) for the computer player. The latest release includes some small fixes and assumes that configured file names are relative to the current user's home directory. Additionally, it adds the ability to create a settings file called .reactionrc in the user's home directory that overrides any system-level settings in Linux.
Version 3.01: N/A