Memory Roach

Premise

----------------

You play as the O/S trying to avoid a system crash by allocating enough memory to any program that requires it. You will also be required to free memory after a program has finished using it.

WIN CONDITION: All program memory allocated and subsequently freed without exceeding the available system memory.

LOSE CONDITION: All system memory consumed by program memory and/or unfreed memory leading to a system crash.

How to Play

----------------

Short video demonstrationof gameplay available here:

Programs will load into memory then continue to call for extra memory from time to time. The player (O/S) will need to place sockets around the map in various locations in order to manufacture enough 'memory roaches' to supply all the required memory for these running programs.

Locate a section of the map with active program memory and construct a socket nearby (hold down the left mouse button on a vacant part of the map to start construction).

Once you have a socket in place, you can start to manufacture memory roaches to supply the program memory required (left-click on the socket to construct a memory roach).

Memory roaches are not super smart so you'll need to direct them to the parts of the map that have active memory blocks. You do this by placing pointers in locations where active memory is present (hold down the right mouse button on a vacant part of the map or an active memory block to place a pointer). You can place a maximum of 2 pointers at a time. Placing a 3rd pointer will remove the oldest pointer.

Roaches within range will start moving towards the pointer until they are near enough to the pointer's location.  At this point they will continue roaming around this area until either reaching an active memory block, or moving within range of another closer pointer.

There is a limit to how many sockets you can place at any given time. Once this limit is reached you will not be able to place any more sockets until you deconstruct an existing socket that is no longer needed (hold down the left mouse button on a socket to deconstruct it).

Once a memory roach has filled the required memory block it will turn blue. You must free used program memory as it still takes up part of the total available system memory (left-click on a blue memory block to clear it).

The game is over once all program memory has been allocated and subsequently freed, provided you didn't run out of all of the available system memory before then. If you allow the available memory to drop below 0KB then a system crash will occur and the game will be over.

Controls

----------------

[Mouse]

Left-Click (Hold for 1.5sec) on an empty block to construct a 1K Socket.

Left-Click (Hold for 2.5sec) on an empty block to construct a 2K Socket.

Left-Click on any socket to manufacture a memory roach of that type.

Left-Click (Hold for 2.0sec) on any socket to deconstruct that socket.

Right-Click (Hold for more than 0.25sec) on either an empty block or an active memory block to place a pointer.

[Keyboard]

Escape - Forfeit the active game and return to the menu / Exit the menu and close the game.