Bomb Busters

^{review by Michael}

Bomb Busters is a cooperative deduction game where you work as a team to defuse a bomb by cutting matching wires. The catch is that you can’t see your teammates’ wires. It’s simple to teach, but it also can feel more tense than you’d expect.

Each player has a rack of wire tiles numbered between 1 and 12, arranged in order, only visible to you. On your turn you point at a tile in a teammate’s rack and guess its number. If you’re right, the wire gets cut. If you’re wrong, the detonator moves forward. There are also a few red wires mixed in, and pointing at one ends the game immediately, so you have to be careful with your guesses. The goal is to cut through all 12 numbers before the detonator runs out.

You can’t tell your teammates what you’re holding, which means the game comes down to logic, memory, and paying attention to the order of everyone’s tiles to make good guesses about what your team has. The box comes with 66 missions which adds fun, new twists and equipment, so there’s a lot to work through even after your first several plays. This also makes the game easy to work as a regular at board game night, since you can work through a couple missions a night.

Bomb Busters plays from 2 to 5, but it can be better with 4 or 5 people, since more players means more information to work with. If you want a co-op that’s quick to teach, quick to set up, and gets better with a bigger group, this one’s a good pick for game night.

Bomb Busters is available now from our webstore.