Instructions
Core Cooldown
Keep a glowing reactor in the red rings: hotter pays more, venting stops the output, and a meltdown loses everything you have not banked yet.
- Year
- 1982
- Era
- Vector
- Genre
- Arcade / Resource Balancing
Free, no sign-up. Keyboard, touch or gamepad.
How to play
- Hold Space (or Down) to vent.
- Press B, X or Up to dump a flare-up when its ring meets the core ring.
- P to pause.
On touch
- Hold anywhere to vent.
- Tap DUMP when a flare-up ring lands on the core.
Every run starts on the title screen. Pause any time with P or the pause button; calm mode removes flashes and screen shake.
Maker’s note
A single gauge and one decision, over and over: how long can you stay in the red? Output is worth about four times more in the red rings than the amber, power is only banked every eight seconds, and a flare-up demands a perfectly timed dump. Two minutes, then the plant shuts down.
The Eracade workshop
Target scores
- 11,500
- 24,000
- 38,000
- 412,000
- 516,000
- 620,000
- 724,000
- 828,000
Each target is a step up. Beat them all and you have outplayed the workshop.
The Vector era, 1977–1982
Glowing phosphor lines on black glass: wireframes, starfields and one bright dot doing something impossible.
High scores
The top ten runs are saved in this browser with your three initials. Nothing is uploaded unless you submit a ranked run, so clearing site data clears the table.
