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khchao.com
Kuan-Hao Chao

Side project

Phage Defense

A bacterial defense diorama. Place four complementary molecular defenses, manage ATP, and intercept schematic injected phage genomes across fifteen escalating waves.

Browser arcade · keyboard & touch

Host Nucleoid Defense Complex

EcoRI · direct fire / Cas9 · long range / RNase · area suppression / Ligase · support

Score0
Best0
ATP Pool350 ATP
WaveWave 0 / 15
Nucleoid Health: 100%

Build your defenses, then start the first wave.

Tactical Emergency Protocols:
EcoRI Cleaver · Level 1
Damage: 32
Target:

How to Play & Strategic Tactics

  • Select & Deploy: Click a defense tower card above, then click anywhere on the cytosolic canvas (outside the path) to construct the molecular unit.
  • Upgrade & Recycle: Click an existing tower on the battlefield to inspect its range, switch targeting priorities, upgrade its catalytic turnover rate (kcat), or recycle it for 70% ATP refund.
  • Touch & keyboard: Select a defense, tap to preview its range, then Confirm placement. Arrow keys move the preview; Enter on the playfield confirms, Escape cancels. Desktop players can click directly to place.
  • Emergency protocols: Fictional Nuclease Surge clears ordinary genomes and damages bosses. CRISPRi uses catalytically inactive Cas9 to repress transcription in biology; freezing movement here is a game abstraction. Overcharge doubles firing rate.
  • Mix your defenses: Boss anti-Cas9 resistance only absorbs Cas9 shots. EcoRI and RNase bypass it. Damage statistics count landed health damage, not shots that miss or are absorbed.
  • Biology versus play: Phages attach outside a bacterial envelope and inject a genome. The lane represents infection progression, not whole phages walking inside the cell. Bacteria have ribosomes and a nucleoid, not mitochondria or lysosomal autophagy. RNase slowing, ligase healing, towers and projectile ranges are strategic abstractions; real ligase seals DNA nicks.