Most board games ask you to push cubes or play cards. Reactor Rescue asks you to build a working circuit with real LEDs, motors, and sensors, then race a two-minute timer to get it functioning.
Announced today by Hape and Labbox Education, Reactor Rescue is a cooperative game for 1-4 players set in the floating city of Electra. Your crew of engineers works through a series of timed missions, each presenting a circuit schematic you need to physically assemble from real components on a plug-and-play board. Early missions might ask you to wire an LED in series. Later ones chain multiple components with parallel paths and sensor triggers. Complete the circuit in time and you progress. Fail and the spacecraft takes damage.
The game includes over 100 circuit challenges and is designed for ages 10 and up, so it scales from first-time tinkerers to anyone comfortable with a breadboard. That makes it a strong candidate for family game nights where someone wants to sneak in a bit of learning without anyone noticing.
Reactor Rescue was designed by sisters Arta and Fiona Shehu, computer science engineers who founded jCoders Academy in Kosovo, where they've taught coding and robotics to thousands of children since 2015. Their classroom experience clearly informed the design. "Players don't just play," said Arta Shehu. "They experience what it's like to be an engineer."
The game launches on Kickstarter on April 21 with early-bird pricing. Hape, the German toy company that distributes to more than 70 countries, is handling production. Pricing hasn't been announced yet, but expect details when the campaign goes live.
There's nothing quite like this on the market right now. If your game group includes anyone who lights up at the phrase "hands-on STEM," keep an eye on this one.
Sources: Manila Times | Labbox Education
