Helix Repair

Replace nucleobases to repair the broken DNA sequence

In Helix Repair, your task is to repair a broken DNA sequence by replacing wrong nucleobases with the right ones. You have 20 seconds. How many nucleobases can you repair with in that time?

Gameplay

The current base pair is highlighted in the center of the screen and the left base is blinking. Your task is to replace that base by the right on, so that a valid base pair with the right base is formed. If the left base already fits the right one, you must leave it in place.

Valid base pairs

Left nucleobase	Right nucleobase
Tymin (purple)	Adenin (green)
Adenin (green)	Tymin (purple)
Cytosin (red)	Guanin (blue)
Guanin (blue)	Cytosin (red)

Controls

You can control the game in two different ways; Using the simple controls or the advanced ones. The simple controls are easier but the advanced controls let you replace the bases much faster!

Simple Controls

With simple controls you can alter the active base until it fits and then confirm it. This game mode is meant for beginners.

• Use the scroll wheel or the Left and Right keys to select the new (left) nucleobase
• Click any mouse button (left, middle, right) or the Enter or Space key to confirm your choice

Advanced Controls

The advanced controls let you select the new base and confirm your selection using only one keystroke. You should play the game like this if you want to reach higher scores. Still, if the left base already fits, you need to leave it in place.

Action	Key
Replace left base with Adenin (green)	Q or 1
Replace left base with Tymin (purple)	W or 2
Replace left base with Guanin (blue)	E or 3
Replace left base with Cytosin (red)	R or 4
Leave left base in place	⮠  or Space

Restarting and Exiting

• After 20 seconds, when your score is displayed, you can restart the game by clicking any mouse button (left, middle, right) or the Enter, Space or Backspace key.
• The game can be closed using the Escape key.

Running the Game

There is no installation required. You can just run the game after downloading it. As Helix Repair is built using the Vulkan graphics API, your GPU needs to support Vulkan and you need to have a Vulkan capable driver and a Vulkan loader installed (which you usually have if your graphics card supports Vulkan). If the game does not launch or crashes during launch there is likely an issue with Vulkan support.

Background

We developed Helix Repair within one weekend during the Global Game Jam 2020, whose theme was "repair". We've been using our own engine, called the "Sphere Engine", which is implemented using the Rust programming language and the Vulkan Graphics API. Rust is a systems programming language empowering software engineers to build reliable and efficient software. Vulkan is a high performance graphics API that can be regarded as the successor of OpenGL, existing alongside DirectX 12 and Metal.