15 MINUTES TO SELF-DESTRUCT

Keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, rollin’...

Designer: Richard Heayes & Petter Ilander | Publisher: Tactic

Do you enjoy rolling dice? Do you like the idea of relentlessly rolling dice while listening to third-rate sci-fi sound effects? Perhaps you crave the thought of trying desperately to roll a particular number while increasingly staring into the infinite abyss of frustration? Well, boy on boy, have we got just the game for you!

15 Minutes to Self-Destruct is a bit like the classic pub game, Shut the Box – if Shut the Box had a wafer-thin theme slapped over it and far more tedious gameplay. In this co-operative game you and four other players take on the role of a spaceship crew trapped in deep space. Unfortunately, thanks to a pesky computer malfunction, the self-destruct sequence has been activated (perhaps because the computer played this game and decided it was better to end it all, rather than carry on) and all the doors are shut. You’ll have to work together to open those doors and get to the escape pod.

Now, of course, you’re wondering how to open those doors. Well, it involves rolling dice… time and time and time and time and time again. You have two D6 at your disposal and you must roll them together. You can then open doors using a single number on a die, or add them together to open a single door. For example, if you rolled four and five, you could open doors four and five, or door nine. However, it is beyond frustrating when you can’t get the correct numbers. In one of our playthroughs one player was trapped in their starting position for FIVE minutes. Five minutes of soulless dice rolling, watching other doors open and close while they could do nothing.

Once you’ve opened a door, you can then move around different areas of the spaceship to switch on ‘activation’ switches. Unfortunately, despite us checking numerous times, these switches do not ‘activate’ any fun. Instead, you’ve got to switch on all 12 switches before heading your way to the escape pod. The issue is that the game makes it almost impossible to, not only open the correct doors, but also flip the switches required. What’s more, there are zero tactical decisions to be made because everything is at the mercy of the dice gods.

Things are spiced up a little by the action cards. You see, if you can’t use both of the numbers on your dice you are punished with an Action Card, which will change the game slightly; typically by messing with the result on a die. To compound the

inherent frustrations in 15 Minutes to Self-Destruct, sometimes the Action Cards will arbitrarily lock doors you’ve previously opened or even deactivate a switch you’ve worked so hard to activate. Cue screams of anger and dice being thrown across the room.

And as for the 15 minute element of the game, that’s because it requires an app to play. Now sometimes, in titles like Mansions of Madness, the app becomes an integral element of the gameplay, which drives the story forward and builds the tension. Here the app is basically a glorified watch timer that counts down from 15 minutes, accompanied by some sci-fi sound effects. Arguably this is the highlight of the game. And if a timer with the odd ‘bleep bloop’ noise on it is the highlight, then you know you’re in trouble.

PLAY IT? NO

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The co-operative gaming space is – somewhat ironically, perhaps – very competitive. There are so many other titles out there looking to fill that space in your gaming library and 15 Minutes to Self-Destruct comes up woefully short. Those 15 minutes of relentless dice rolling will seem like the longest 15 minutes of your life, and you’ll soon wish you could be jettisoned into deep space, if only to avoid playing again.