Energy — Play Free Online

Energy is a quiet line-rotating puzzle. Each level is a network of glowing lines that has to be turned into one working circuit: every lightbulb on the board must end up connected to the power source. There is no timer, no enemy and no score pressure, so it is a very different kind of game from the jumpers that fill most of Doodle Jump.

A level starts with the pieces scrambled. You look at the layout, work out which segments belong where, and rotate them until the current can flow from the source to every bulb. When the last bulb lights up, the level is complete and you move to the next, usually a little more tangled than the one before.

It suits the moments when you want a break from the reflexes that Doodle Jump demands. The minimalist glowing-line look keeps the screen uncluttered, which helps because the whole challenge is reading the board.

How to play

The game is built around tapping or clicking. Select a line segment to rotate it into a new orientation, and keep going until the path between the power source and the bulbs is unbroken. The page lists arrow keys or WASD for movement and the mouse for aiming and selecting; in practice the mouse (or a finger on a phone) is what you will use, since the puzzle is solved by rotating pieces rather than steering anything.

A round is simply one level. You can take as long as you like, and nothing is lost by turning a piece the wrong way, because you can rotate it again.

Tips

• Start with the dead ends. A segment at the edge of the board that touches nothing has only one sensible orientation, so fix it first.
• Work outward from the power source. Once the first few pieces are locked in, the options for their neighbours shrink quickly.
• Look for pieces that must point toward a bulb, since a bulb has to be reached by some line, and settle those before the flexible middle pieces.
• If a level stalls, step back and check for a loop or a spur that is feeding nothing, then rotate that group differently instead of undoing everything.

Similar games on Doodle Jump

Energy is one of the calmer picks on the site. If you want a thinking game with more movement, Fireboy and Watergirl asks you to guide two characters through temple puzzles, and its Crystal Temple entry adds more elaborate rooms. OvO is a precision platformer where timing matters more than planning, and Bloons Tower Defense 2 is a strategy game where you place defences against waves. Energy is the one to open when you only want to look at a board and think.

It runs in the browser with nothing to install, works with touch as well as a mouse, and is easy to play in short sessions.