QuantaVania
QuantaVania is a 2D action-adventure platformer where the quantum circuit is your weapon. Don't just collect power-ups - build real quantum circuits to fight through each level.
⚛️ Play with real quantum
Every level hands you a live circuit grid. Drop gates - X, H, Z, CNOT and more - onto your qubits to put your shots into superposition and entanglement. The state you build is the attack you fire. It's powered by a real quantum backend (Qiskit on desktop), so what you learn here is the real thing, not a metaphor.
🗺️ Explore the quantum world
- Cross a scrolling overworld and unlock story levels one by one.
- Dodge crab monsters and turrets, collect coins, ride the terrain.
- Take on the QUBO / TSP challenge - solve a real optimisation problem with quantum annealing (D-Wave on desktop, a pure-Python annealer in the browser).
🛠️ Build & share
Use the in-game level editor to design your own levels - paint terrain, place coins, enemies, and quantum tiles - then play and share them.
🎮 Controls
Overworld (level map)
- ← / → - move between level nodes
- Space / Enter - enter the selected level
- Q - open the QUBO / TSP challenge
- B - open the level builder
- Esc - back
In a level - move your hero
- ← / → - run, Space - jump
- Reach the right end of the level to win; falling off or losing all health sends you back.
In a level - build your circuit (WASD grid)
Each level gives you a live quantum circuit (more qubits as you progress). You move a cursor over the grid and drop gates onto the wires.
| Key | Action |
| W,A,S,D | move the circuit cursor (up / left / down / right) |
| X | place an X (NOT) gate |
| Y | place a Y gate |
| Z | place a Z gate |
| H | place a Hadamard (H) gate → superposition |
| T | place a T gate |
| C | add a control to the gate under the cursor (turns X→CNOT, etc.) → entanglement |
| R / F | move that control wire up / down |
| Q / E | rotate the gate's phase (− / +) |
| Backspace | delete the gate under the cursor |
| Delete | clear the whole circuit |
In a level - measure, set state, shoot
- Left-click or M - measure the circuit and lock the result in as your hero's quantum state.
- Right-click or N - shoot a qubit bullet carrying a freshly measured state (costs 1 qubit-bullet).
- Esc - back to the overworld.
⚔️ How combat works (the quantum bit)
Every enemy carries its own quantum state. Your shot (or a stomp from above) only damages an enemy when your measured state is orthogonal to its state - i.e. their bit-string dot product is 0. If it's non-zero, you heal the enemy instead. So you're not mashing fire: you read the enemy, then build a circuit whose measurement comes out orthogonal to it.
- Use H to put a wire in superposition, C to entangle wires, and X/Y/Z to flip and phase, then measure to collapse to a basis state.
- Qubit-bullets are ammo - top them up with coins: 🥈 silver +2, 🥇 gold +5, 💎 diamond +10.
- Watch your health and shield bars; spikes, crab monsters, and turret shots all hurt.
💡 Why it exists
QuantaVania teaches quantum computing from the ground up by playing - gates, superposition, entanglement, and optimisation become game mechanics, not textbook chapters. Built as an open, community-driven project with room to grow into an open-world sandbox: design levels, share them, and mine qubits, gates, and power-ups.
First load takes a few seconds - the browser is fetching the Python/WASM runtime. Best on desktop Chrome/Firefox. 🎧 with sound.
⭐ Open source: https://github.com/ashmitjsg/QuantaVania
