Overview
Chain Reactor is a fast paced action-puzzler where the player must keep their Reactor Core from melting down. In order to keep their Reactor Core cool, players must rotate quickly falling Fusion Cells and place them strategically throughout the Reactor Chamber. As more and more Cells amass without reacting, the Reactor Core becomes increasingly hot and unstable, and eventually it will blow!

Object of the Game
As more Fusion Cells collect in the Reactor Chamber, the Reactor Core becomes more unstable. The Fusion Cells, however, are also unstable and will react once 4 or more of the same color Cells are connected, which causes them to react and disappear. Once a Fusion Cell is placed in the top row of the Reactor Chamber, the Reactor Core blows and the game is over. A level is completed once a player uses a pre-determined number of Fusion Cells. Compile the most amount of points while keeping the Reactor Core cool to win.

Playing the Game
Fusion Cells drop into the the Reactor Chamber one pair at a time. There is enough room for 12 rows of 6 Cells in the chamber. To the left of the chamber is the Feed Chute where the next Cell pair is shown. To the right of the chamber is the display of a player?s score and bonus, along with the current level and the number of Fusion Cells remaining in the level.

• Controls: The player controls a set of Tractor Beams that guide the Fusion Cells that is currently falling in the Reactor Chamber. The Left and Right keys will move the Fusion Cells sideways. The Up and Down keys will rotate the Fusion Cells clockwise or counterclockwise, respectively. The Space key will cause the Tractor Beams to shut down and the Cell pair will drop immediately.
• Removing Cells: The only way to reduce the heat in the Reactor Chamber is to remove Fusion Cells. Once 4 or more Fusions Cells form a chain of any shape, they will react and disappear. Cells of the same color must connect side by side; not diagonally.

Special Cells
There are a number of Special Cells that do not behave like the regular colored Fusion Cells.

• Explosive Cells: When another Cell is placed directly on top of Explosive Cells they will explode, destroying the eight neighboring cells as well. Explosive Cells will also explode if they are caught in another nearby explosion.
• Mystery Cells: The helpful mystery cells will appear as flashing cells, cycling through the various fusion cell types. Once set, they will permanently assume the color of the most dominant colored neighbor. If placed near Dead Cells or Explosive Cells with no colored Cells nearby, it will turn into a Dead Cell.
• Dead Cells: The dreaded Dead Cells will not react to normal reactions, but will drop if Cells below them are removed. The only way to get rid of a Dead Cell is by blowing it away with an Explosive Cell.

Chain Reactions
When Fusion Cells are removed, any Cells above them will drop. If these Cells drop into 4 or more Cells of the same color, the Cells will react again causing a Chain Reaction. Chain Reactions yield greater points, plus bonus points. The higher the Chain Level, the better the reward.

Scoring

• Every time a Cell is removed the player is rewarded with 100 points per Cell per Chain Level. For example, the player will receive 200 points per Cell removed in the Second Chain Level Reaction.
• The player will receive 50 bonus points per Cell in a Chain Reaction regardless of the Chain Level.
• The fast players will find that using the Space key to shut the Tractor Beams down is particularly rewarding, as this will give 10 bonus points per row the Fusion Cells fall.
• Once a level is completed, the Horizontal Beam will scan through the Reactor Chamber and award 10 bonus points per unoccupied square. After this scan, all the bonus points accumulated through the game will be added to the player?s total score.

Overflows
Every time a cell pair is placed in the fusion chamber the reactor core begins to overheat and a fusion cell is added to the overflow buffer. Once the buffer is filled to the max, the reactor purges the buffer and the player receives a row of fusion cells on top of his other cells. This may cause chain reactions or simply disrupt the player?s building process which is bad enough when the pace gets high.

To help counter the devastating effects of the overflow, the cell pairs that are added will be shown when they are added above the fusion chamber.

Winning the Tournament
A player wins the tournament by registering the highest score of all players involved.

Other Features
A player can choose to Quit the game at any time by clicking either the "Resign" or "Exit" button, which are both located on the bottom of the game screen. Warning: Quitting prior to game completion in a tournament will result in the surrender of the tournament entry fee!