Professor - The Genetic Code

Lab strategy in 1961

Professor - The Genetic Code is a turn-based lab management game for PC, set in 1961, when scientists were still working out how genes specify proteins. You run one of the labs racing to decipher the genetic code. The central strategy comes from designing experiments and interpreting their results, rather than from a science-themed puzzle layered over a separate system.

The research is based on four experiments used to crack the code between 1961 and 1967. The game simplifies them for play while keeping their underlying logic: you make synthetic RNA, use cell extracts, and reason from the radioactive amino acids produced.