We play games for many reasons, sometimes we play to relax, other times to enjoy social time with our friends. We play for intellectual stimulation, we play to immerse ourselves in a alternate reality and to experience things we have never experienced before.
Rarely, however, do I set out with the intention of playing a game to increase my stress levels! That, however, is exactly how I felt this weekend when my friends and I took on Fuse, from Renegade Studios. Fuse is a real time, co-op game about defusing bombs. It uses a ten minute timer with a computerised voice reminding you just how little time you have remaining.
Each player has in front of them two bombs which they must defuse in a very exact way using dice. One player draws dice from the bag and rolls them, each player must then take one of those dice and add it to their bomb, if they cannot take a die it sets everyone back.
Unlike most co-op games Fuse does not suffer from Alpha gamer syndrome. It is physically impossible to work on your own bombs while telling the other players what to do. However, you must find a way to work together. Making decisions quickly is crucial, finding ways to quickly make your needs known to the other players so that you can each grab a dice and get back to rolling is essential. Whenever the game locks up because of indecision it is a nerve wracking experience.
We failed our first two games, twenty minutes of adrenaline pumping, edge of our seats terror as we struggled to work together, our stack of bomb cards not depleting anywhere near as fast as we needed.
When we finally won game three I felt a sense of relief and one of reward. Sure we only beat the training mission but we did it with one minute ten seconds on the clock and racked up a pretty nifty score of 73. Fuse is one of those rare games which actually manages to create a sense of tension that so many other games are missing. It’s a stressful game, it’s loud and chaotic but it creates a genuine endorphin rush when you get to hit stop on the timer and tally up your score.
We took on the game one last time, to prove it wasn’t a fluke and finished with over 2 minutes left on the clock and a score of 89, clearly we’re ready for the big leagues! Or at least to turn the difficulty up to “Standard” ;)
If you haven’t tried Fuse yet, I highly recommend it.