FUSE Countdown Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Fuse: Countdown, a real time, cooperative board game published by Renenage Games. In Fuse: Countdown, players are working together to roll dice and disarm bombs that are on their ship.

Dice are fun. Everyone loves rolling dice. Yes, we complain about randomness and blame our losses on the randomness of dice, but we all really love dice. It is why we all have dozens! (I’m not the only one, right???) FUSE taps into our inherent love of dice. You get to roll dice for 10 minutes straight! It is a blast.

FUSE Countdown is a standalone expansion and is a cooperative game for 1-4 players designed by Kane Klenko. Each game takes 10 minutes to play. It is equally viable at all four player counts.

This is a fast-paced game. Thematically, bombs have been placed on your ship, and you have exactly ten minutes (in real-time) to defuse them before the ship explodes. As you proceed through each turn, the clock does not stop for any reason, and your decisions all have to be made in your alloted ten minutes. All the while, if you use the optional app countdown, the ship’s A.I. is reminding you of the impending danger. This is a sequel/expansion to the original FUSE. if you play it as an exampnsion, it introduces a few new mechanics and concepts, but it is also totally fine to play on its own.

In FUSE, you have 25 colored dice—5 each of red, yellow, blue, black, and red. You take turns drawing and rolling these dice and splitting them with your fellow players. Your needs will each be different, as each player has separate bomb cards that they must complete. Each of these bomb cards has a different formula based on color, number, math, and more. To complete the bombs, you have to place the dice that match these formulas onto the