Bomb Arena

Bomb Arena is three short heats on a grid of crates and stone pillars. Fire only travels in straight lines, a bomb turns into a wall the moment you step off it, and the fuse is two seconds. Your own bomb is as deadly to you as anyone's, so the players who last know their way out before they press Q.

Three heats

Each heat is a fresh board, up to 60 seconds long, opening with a three-second "Ready..." hold. You place by how long you lasted, and everyone standing at the buzzer shares first. A heat pays a point for each player you outlasted, and the three heats are added up.

Every heat rolls a mutator, named during the Ready hold. One board in five is plain. The others: Hair-trigger fuses (one second), Big boom (everyone starts with a reach of 4), Speed demon, Bomb hoarder (four bombs each), Invisible bombs, Second Chance (a shield each), Crate rain, The tomb collapses (from 20 seconds the outer rings turn to falling stone, a cell every half second) and The Mummy wakes.

Two events land in every heat as well, one 15 to 20 seconds after GO and one 40 to 45 seconds in, each behind a five-second countdown: a maze shift that reshuffles every crate and wipes every bomb, a crate drop on eight blinking gold cells, or bomb rain on six blinking red ones.

Bomb, kick, defuse

• Q drops a bomb on your cell. You start with one at a time and a reach of two cells each way. A red cross lights up on the floor under every lit fuse, showing exactly where the fire will go.
• E kicks a resting bomb in your cell or the next one. It slides away from you until it meets a crate, pillar, wall or another bomb, and it slides straight past people. A bomb under your own feet goes the way you face. Two-second cooldown.
• R defuses any bomb in reach, sliding or not, whoever dropped it. Ten-second cooldown.

Fire stops at the first crate it breaks and at any pillar, and a bomb caught in a blast goes off at once, so chains run across the board. About 45% of broken crates leave a power-up once the flames clear: Fire (+1 reach, up to 6), Bombs (+1 at a time, up to 5), Speed (up to +3) and Shield (survives one blast). Fire and Bombs turn up twice as often, and a blast burns any power-up lying in it.

Staying alive

• Never bomb a dead end. You need a corner to step round, and you can't walk back through the bomb you just left.
• Read the red cross, not the bomb. Under Invisible bombs the bomb is nearly see-through, but its cross still shows.
• Q then E is a launched bomb: drop it, kick it down the lane you face, and its cross reaches back along the row from wherever it stops.
• Save R for the bomb that corners you. Ten seconds is long in a 60-second heat.
• A maze shift deletes every bomb, so if you're trapped as its countdown ends, sit tight.
• Once you're out you haunt the board, and Q drops a small revenge bomb (reach 1) every 10 seconds. It won't change your place, but it settles scores.

The Mummy

When The Mummy wakes, a bandaged boss stands in the centre cell and stops fire like a pillar. Its first attack lands eight seconds after GO and the next every 10 seconds, each after three seconds of white eyes and blinking orange cells. It fills them with sand: the whole row and column through the middle, then a square ring two cells out, taking turns. Sand breaks crates and sets off bombs.

Board size

The board grows with the room, keeping about twenty open cells each from four players up: 11 by 9 at 2 players, 13 by 11 at 4, and 25 by 25 at 16. Every lane two seats share has a crate between them, so your first bomb always has something to break and no fire reaches your seat until someone has blasted through.