Hold the Grid: a close look, tips and whether it is worth your time

If you like counting resources instead of waving a mouse, this control room is for you. Below is the gist, the controls and the habits worth having before the first level.

What this game is

Hold the Grid is a game about a power grid dispatcher. You have sources with limited output and districts that need energy, and between them there are only the cables you lay yourself. One cable carries 40 MW, so a district with a bigger demand needs several lines or its own route through a distribution hub. Sources are not endless either: the total output of each is printed under its icon, so feeding one district at the expense of another will not work.

The key rule is overload. If a line is asked to carry more than it can, the cable burns: it drops out of the grid and the district goes dark. So "connect everything to everything" is not a plan — you have to count how much energy each line will actually carry. Flow dots run along the cables, and the higher the load, the brighter and thicker the line: an overload is visible before it happens.

How to play, briefly

1. Hold the Grid is a power-grid dispatcher game: connect sources to districts with cables.

2. Drag from one node to another to lay a cable; tap a cable to take it back into your budget.

3. Watch the load: a line pushed past 40 MW burns and drops out of the grid.

4. Demand changes every phase, and the forecast for the next one sits in the bottom-right corner.

A few parting tips

• Plan for a district's peak demand, not its current one: a 60 MW district needs two cables even if forty is enough right now.
• A distribution hub saves budget: one long line to the hub plus short branches is cheaper than a separate cable into every district.
• Unused cables earn a bonus, so laying everything "just in case" hurts your score as much as a burnt line does.

The perfect way to kill ten minutes — and then miss an entire hour. Ready to try? Hold the Grid: a power grid dispatcher