"I personally love the hard copy concept, just the idea of having people huddled around a table, spreading out papers everywhere, adding to the chaos of it," Kane said. This would be easy if players used a device such as a phone or tablet to view the manual, but that loses some of the joy of the game.
KEEP CALM AND NOBODY EXPLODES MANUAL
The challenge is to make both the bomb’s design and the paper manual dynamic. "Within those components there is some variation on those properties."ĭesigning a randomly generated bomb is possible, but the game also requires the use of a hard copy manual that the other players use to decipher the steps needed to defuse each version of the bomb. It’s made of independent components that get randomly generated, so the bomb is different every time," Kane explained. "The bomb is actually fairly simple in the current iteration.
KEEP CALM AND NOBODY EXPLODES FULL
The team is discussing a possible next step towards turning their prototype into a full game. Kane was one of the developers who created the project and, although they didn’t start out thinking about the game as a commercial product, interest in a for-pay release has exploded. "The key to the whole experience is that one person feels isolated and in their own place, and the other players have no concept about what they could be seeing," Ben Kane told Polygon. It also requires a whole lot of specialized hardware. It’s a game about communication, pressure, and the ability to work together.
The team has to use those descriptions to decipher the instructions and tell the player next to the bomb what to do. The player next to the bomb has to describe what they see, as they are the only person who can "touch" or examine the explosive device. The rest of the players look at a hard copy of the bomb’s manual, which is laid out almost like a logic problem. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodesis a game created by three developers and a musician for the Global Game Jam, and the player defusing the bomb wears an Oculus Rift headset to isolate themselves from the rest of the team. The bad news is that it’s still your life hanging in the balance. The better news is that your friends are speaking to you through a radio, and they have access to the bomb’s documentation. The good news is that you're the only one who will die if you fail to defuse the device. The Bomb Defusal Manual is freely available at and can be printed or viewed on a tablet or any other web-enabled device.You and the bomb are alone together. Local co-op party game – Bomb defusing is a team endeavor.A different bomb every time – Procedurally generated puzzles keep the action fresh.Challenging puzzles – Test the limits of your communication skills.Puzzle-solving and communication skills – and maybe a few friendships – will be put to the test as players race to defuse bombs while communicating quickly, clearly, and effectively. Rounds are fast-paced, tense, occasionally silly, and almost always loud. But there’s a catch: the Experts can’t see the bomb, so everyone will need to talk it out – fast! The other players are the “Experts” who must give the instructions to defuse the bomb by deciphering the information found in the Bomb Defusal Manual. One player is trapped in a room with a ticking time bomb they must defuse.