Fuse

🎮 About This Game

Fuse is a bomb rally with one twist that carries the whole game: you aim with your feet. There is no throw button and no aim cursor — the bomb launches by itself every 1.6 seconds, and it lands on the mirror of whatever tile you are standing on at that moment. Two 4×4 pads face each other across a gap, one bomb hisses between them, and every step you take is simultaneously your aim, your defence, and a bluff your opponent is watching in real time. To hit their far corner you must stand in YOUR far corner, abandoning the centre you will want next pass — position is the only currency, and you spend it three ways at once. The second rule is the one that ends arguments about camping: every throw torches its own launchpad. The tile you threw from cracks, and it collapses at the very next throw — stand on it too long and you go down with it. Your floor only ever shrinks because of your own throws, so every hole in your pad is a decision you made. Catch the bomb inside the defusal ring (two tiles of the landing, counted in city-block steps) and the rally continues; miss it and you lose one of your three hearts. After twelve passes the ring tightens to a single tile, and the endgame becomes a pure read: whoever guesses the other's final step wrong, loses the heart.

🎯 How to Play

Move with WASD (Player 1), the arrow keys (Player 2), or just tap a tile on your own pad — the pawn hops there. In solo mode either hand works and the CPU takes the far pad. You get exactly two hops per pass, shown as pips under your pawn; they refill every time the bomb changes hands. While the bomb is held, a ghost outline on the receiving pad tracks the thrower's tile live — that is where the bomb will land if the fuse runs out right now. When the fuse ring around the bomb completes, the throw fires, both players lock in place for the flight, and the landing is checked: inside the ring means a catch, outside means an explosion and a lost heart. After your throw, your launchpad cracks — step off it before the next throw fires or you fall with it. The wick bar at the top counts the passes: at twelve the ring tightens from two tiles to one and the rally will not last much longer. First to take all three of the opponent's hearts wins; the serve alternates every heart. Solo has three CPU levels — Easy commits its position early, Hard holds its bluff until the last quarter-second and learns where you like to stand.

💡 Tips & Strategy

• ▸Hold your hops. The single most common way to lose is spending both pips chasing the thrower's dance, then having nothing left when they commit in the last half-second. You are safe anywhere within two tiles of the ghost — if it is already inside your ring, standing still is the strongest move in the game.
• ▸The centre four tiles are your keystone: a central tile reaches 11 of the 16 landing spots, a corner reaches only 6. Spend your corners and edges as launchpads first, and treat every throw you make from the centre as a small piece of your defence you just set on fire.
• ▸Commit late. The ghost follows you in real time, so an early move is a message and a late move is an attack. The Hard CPU holds until the final quarter-second of the fuse for exactly this reason — dance in the middle, then take the real stand as the ring closes.
• ▸Read the aim before you read the player: their throws can only come from tiles they can still stand on. When their centre is burnt out, every remaining launchpad is an edge — which means every landing is an edge mirror, and you can pre-cover the whole set.
• ▸Step off your crack first. After your throw, escaping the cracking launchpad beats every clever idea you have — it collapses at the next throw, full stop. In testing, both our CPU and our own test bot lost entire matches purely by standing on floor that no longer existed.
• ▸Do not throw at their feet. Landing the bomb where they already stand feels aggressive but is the measured worst strategy in the game — it never scores, and it burns your own floor for nothing. Aim where their remaining hops cannot reach, not where they are.
• ▸Plan for pass twelve. When the wick fills, the ring drops to one tile and near-misses start killing. The player who enters sudden death with an intact centre and two pips usually takes the heart — which means the passes you spend before it are also deciding it.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions