Capacitors in the real world hold a charge and release it when a certain condition’s met. We modeled our in-game capacitor the same way: it holds a signal for exactly one beat, then lets it go.
On paper it’s a boring part. In practice it turned out to be the single most opinionated component on the board.
Why
Because the capacitor is the only component that makes you wait on purpose. Every other part is about getting a signal through. The capacitor is about holding one back. And once you have a part whose whole job is to be patient, the rest of the game opens up:
- Two signals racing? Stall one in a capacitor so they land on the same beat.
- A feedback loop running hot? Drop a capacitor in, the loop takes a breath, the board steadies.
- A stubbornly empty tile in the middle of your layout? Park a capacitor there, call it “the drum.”
Patience as a mechanic. It works because the board has a tempo. Without the tempo, a capacitor is just a slow resistor. With it, the capacitor is the part that knows what time it is.
Writing this up as an advisory for our puzzle designers: if the part is about timing, not about throughput, put it on a separate cost budget. Players will overspend on it because it feels good, and we should let them.