The Silicon Situation

A hopefully unusual take on the tower defense genre, with a mixed offense/defense real-time battle.

The battlefield is hardware, and the key to success is security. Two companies, Penguin Power and Frog Factor, compete to build components for the same board and fight to out-hack each other's security. To this end, they threaten each other's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) by overloading it with data coming from RAM. This onslaught can be protected against by processing the data through a CPU or GPU.

You play as one of these companies. The initial board layout is fixed (randomly selected between an easier and a harder configuration—figure out which is which!), and you instead control the spawning of data from your RAM (towards the enemy TPM) while defending from incoming waves by using your processing chips and additional powers. You need to manage two resources: your total memory (blue), which limits the amount of troops you can spawn at any time, and your energy (yellow), which is needed to run your chips. Memory replenishes automatically when units are destroyed, but energy is hard to recover (only by disabling a CPU or GPU), and if you run out all chips turn off - a pickle that you'll want to avoid at all costs.

You have exclusive single-use powers at your disposal in the left sidebar, including as placing new chips and hindering your opponents' operations. Use them to create decisive opportunities; you will need them, as resistance to your corporate dominance is tough.

Controls:

• Mouse to point and click (on chips, on buttons and on powers)
• Escape to unselect or cancel placing powers