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The Electric Shocktopus is Here!

SGC SGC

The long national nightmare is over: The Electric Shocktopus is out on Mac, PC, and Linux. (and on Steam, if you're into that kinda thing!)

Our hero, the titular Shocktopus, is out for revenge against the Magnetic Yeti. It's a dangerous world, though, but our little Cephalopod has a trick up one of his eight sleeves: he can change his electric charge at will. Zoom across electric fields, twist through magnets, and use conductors to bend the world to your will.

Never has the Right-Hand-Rule involved so many tentacles.

The Electric Shocktopus was designed and created by Andy Hall of TestTubeGames. The music was made by Brian Allen Holmes, and the SFX were handcrafted by Kevin Notar.




Full Version Features

The Full Version of The Electric Shocktopus contains a bunch more science, gameplay, and complexity. A quick, incomplete list...

  • Electrical Conductors that Warp Fields
  • Currents flowing through wires, making Magnetic Fields
  • Switches that allow for absurd things like this
  • Cold seeking missiles
  • 45 Levels of gameplay, and many extra-challenging user-made levels
  • Boss Fight!
  • Seeecrets

The Science

The game is based on the actual physics of Electromagnetism -- which means you'll be an expert in the topic by the end. Or, well, you'll have beaten a game. And isn't that enough? The game includes:

  • Accurate Physics from a pedant you can trust
  • Electric charges that attract and repel you
  • Magnetic fields that cause you to spin according to Lorentz Forces
  • Conductors that warp electric fields, calculated using the Relaxation Method
  • Electric currents that lead to magnetic fields, via the Biot-Savart Law
  • 44 Levels of fun! Plus one level of pure torture.
  • A Level Editor so you can make all your own levels, or do your own physics experiments.
  • A whole bunch of spikes and missiles.
  • The game comes with a virtual Voltmeter and electric field meter.
  • One more opportunity not to learn the Right Hand Rule!

Want to know more about the physics behind the game? Go here to check out some deeper explanations of what’s going on.

Blog Posts:

Videos:

For Teachers

Are you a teacher looking for resources? Great! Here are some examples of things your students can investigate:

  • Based on the Voltmeter in the game, what is the strength of the charges in Coulombs?
  • Based on how the Shocktopus moves, how strong is gravity?
  • Based on how the Shocktopus moves, what is the strength of *his* charge?
  • How about the strength of the magnetic fields?
  • Have the students make a level that shows off a concept (dipoles, shielding, capacitors, biot-savart law, etc)
  • Have them play the levels each other made!

If you do end up using the game as part of a classroom activity, I'd love to hear about it!

Version History

Version 1.0

The Electric Shocktopus is out! Version 1.0 brings a lot of bug fixes, as well as a sleek new Voltmeter. Learn more about this update with the full Release Notes. If you find any bugs in the game, let me know, or join the chat in the TestTubeGames forums.

Feedback

Questions? Comments? Bug reports? Stumped on a level? Send an email to ‘andy’ who is at ‘testtubegames.com’.

Press

Grab some screenshots, or learn more about the story of the game by going to our presskit(). Or you can always email me, andy, at this website's domain.