Free browser game
A free online idle game about a dead power grid and the fact that there is never enough of it to go round. One supply, three things that want it, and a redline you are allowed to cross.
Most idle games ask you which number you would like to raise next, and the answer is always all of them, eventually. This one gives you a single supply of power and three loads drawing on it, so every decision costs you something you can name: a point given to the mine is a point the lab does not get, and the research you are not doing is the tier you do not unlock. You start by turning a handle. Within four minutes the plant has taken over and you never touch it again.
The hook
Everything above your rating is free output. It is also heat.
Your grid has a rating, and the load dial goes well past it. Draw 180 per cent and every single thing you own produces 80 per cent more, immediately, with nothing bought and nothing researched. There is no downside except the one: heat climbs by the square of how far over you are. At 120 per cent you have minutes to play with. At 240 per cent you have about nine seconds.
Let it reach the top and the grid trips on its own, and takes three quarters of your copper and research with it. So the real game is not choosing an upgrade. It is deciding how long you are willing to sit in the red, and being somewhere else when it matters.
Three loads, one supply
Copper, which is what every generator is bought with. Starve it and you stop building.
Research, which unlocks the next tier of generator and every upgrade. Starve it and you stop growing.
Headroom. It raises the rating itself, so the same overload costs less heat. Starve it and the redline stays where it is.
The three dials always sum to a hundred, so there is no configuration where you are doing well at everything. Early on the lab is nearly all of it, because nothing else matters until the next tier opens. Later you will want the battery, because the rating is the ceiling on how hard you are able to push.
The loop
An accidental trip gives you nothing. A deliberate one gives you insight.
When you trip the grid on purpose — a cold start — everything goes: every generator, all your copper, all your research. What survives is INSIGHT, a permanent multiplier on everything for every run afterwards.
How much you get depends on the highest output you ever reached, which means a cold start pays you for going further than you have ever gone rather than for going round the loop again. Doing the same run twice earns nothing the second time. Insight also has a deliberately steep diminishing return, so the hundredth point is worth far less than the first — which is what stops the whole thing collapsing into a button you press every ninety seconds.
Nine tiers
One person, one handle. It is not much but it is not nothing.
Loud, filthy, and it starts on the first turn every time.
A weir and a wheel. It never stops and it never speeds up.
A century of engineering aimed at boiling water very hard.
Spins up in ninety seconds. That is why it exists.
Enormous, patient, and paperwork all the way down.
Cheap per acre. You will need a great many acres.
Twenty years away, and finally it was not.
You stopped making power and started noticing it.
While you are gone
Close the tab and the grid carries on for up to twelve hours, and tells you what it made when you come back. It runs at its rating rather than over it, because nobody is watching the temperature while you are asleep — so you never come home to a tripped grid, and you never collect the redline bonus for time you were not there.
There is also a soundtrack that is not quite a soundtrack. The mains hum rises with the load and goes rough as the heat climbs, so the thing you steer by is audible even while you are reading the build list. The music adds a voice each time the plant crosses an order of magnitude, which makes the score a readout of how far you have come.
Common questions
Yes. It runs in your browser with no download, no account and nothing to buy. Your grid, your research and your insight all save on your own device.
An incremental one with a decision in it. Most idle games ask you to pick which number to raise next. This one gives you a single supply of power and three things that want it, so every choice costs you something specific: more copper means less research, and more research means a slower mine.
Your grid has a rating, and you are allowed to draw more than it. Everything above the rating is straight bonus output, so drawing 180 per cent means everything produces 80 per cent more. The catch is heat, which climbs by the square of how far over you are. At 120 per cent you have minutes. At 240 per cent you have seconds.
You lose three quarters of your copper and research, the load drops back to safe, and nothing is earned. It is not a game over and there is no run lost, it is just expensive. Later research halves what an accident takes off you, and a governor will pull the load back for you automatically.
The prestige. You trip the grid deliberately instead of accidentally, and where an accident gives you nothing, doing it on purpose keeps INSIGHT: a permanent multiplier on everything for every run afterwards. How much you get depends on the highest output you reached, so a cold start pays you for going further than you ever have, not for going round again.
When the button lights up, which is around twenty to thirty minutes in. It will tell you the peak output you need for your next point and what you would get for pulling the plug now. There is never a reason to rush it and never a penalty for waiting.
Yes, for up to twelve hours. It runs at your rating rather than over it, because nobody is watching the temperature while you are asleep, so you never come home to a tripped grid and you never earn the redline bonus offline either.
Yes. The routing dials and the load dial are drag targets sized for a thumb, the panels become tabs, and the whole thing fills the screen. It is the same game and the same save as on a desktop.
The nine generator tiers take a few hours of attention to climb the first time, and insight makes each pass faster. There is no ending screen. It is an idle game.