Board Game Review – FUSE [EN]

FUSE is a time based cooperative game in which players try to deactivate a set number of bombs in 10 minutes. This is one of the positive sides of this game. It always lasts 10 minutes (although after playing it once you will want to play again and then again). On the other hand, timed manner creates tension and chaos during its gameplay. But the game is fairly simple for it to become something very negative. Though it’s abstract in its nature and there could be anything in place of the bombs (actually at some point there will be a sister game released in which players will try to heal patients). In a play order players take a set number of dice from the bag and roll them, then decide who takes which die. Every player has one or two cards (“bombs”) in front of them with a requirement to eliminate it. It can be a colors, values and position of dice. Once a player fulfills such requirement, he drops the dice back into bag and puts a card into a scoring pile. Then he draws a new card from the display of available 5 cards. Cards vary in difficulty (and accordingly points awarded for them). Game’s goal is to deactivate a set number of bombs, based on a number of players, in a 10 minutes span. At the end of the game the left over time (in the case of a win) is converted into points and all deactivated bombs are added to the total score. The game is simple, but it is not easy to win. Actually, after playing it 15 times i have not yet defeated it (solo or with a group). The closest i was when playing solo (a few bombs left). And we are only playing it on a standard mode 🙂 This detracts from a game a bit, as we should already have won at least once after so many plays. And as we played it a few times every day for some time i have burned out on it a bit. But looking at it as objectively as possible i can say this is a good game. I can see how me and my group are evolving, constantly honing our actions to waste less time and to evaluate who needs which dice better and faster. This is a great tool for team building 🙂 Game pieces quality is good. Though a few of my dice already had colors chipping out either from the beginning or after a few plays. We try to roll them on a mouse pad, but dice still scratch one another when rolled or in the bag. The dice are chunky and colorful with numbers in style of an electronic tableau. Cards looks sturdy enough. Publishers also provide an app which has a timer, with a snarky commentary while counting towards zero. It also saves scores for you. Though after a recent app update all the scores disappeared. So it is wise to keep them in some other place, if this is important. Renegade Game Studios recently is on the radar producing great quality and interesting games. FUSE is one of them. And i hope someday to defeat it. 8/10

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *