Hera Garalea and Two Partners Clear Ten Stages in a Co-op Bomb-Defusal Game

MAHA5 — Hera Garalea of MAHA5 (04ID 4th Generation) played a cooperative bomb-defusal game with Cecilia Lieberia and Tsuzuri Neventine on Saturday night, working through ten stages over a stream of about two and a half hours. Near the end the three said they had reached level 20, the target they had set for the evening.

In the game, one player reads the manual while the others describe the lights, symbols and numbers on each bomb module. Chat called the manual reader the *mandor*, or foreman. The three rotated roles, and some roles limited what a player could see, hear or say. Hera, whom the others call Nyai, said at the start that she would mostly play a supporting part. The group chose a warm-up at level 11 and set a minimum goal of level 20 for the night.

“We’re smart, guys.” — Hera Garalea, Cecilia Lieberia and Tsuzuri Neventine, after clearing a hard module

The early going was rough. Bombs went off repeatedly, and about half an hour in the group laughed that it had spent that long on a single stage. The first module fell around the 31-minute mark, and a piano-note module followed a few minutes later. A maze module caused the longest argument: the players could not agree whether the green light sat in row one, column two or row two, column two, and chat’s answers split. When they worked it out, the chat’s answer had been the wrong one, and Hera joked that chat had led them astray. The same row-and-column confusion returned late in the stream, when chat was again split between row three, column six and row six, column three.

Around the hour-and-a-half mark one player dropped out of the lobby and the group rejoined. A clover-shaped module then cost them several bombs until a participant worked out that colors from earlier stages had to be pressed again before each new one. They cleared it at about 1 hour 46 minutes. From there the pace picked up: a number-entry module that had stalled them was solved, the players described new symbol modules more smoothly, and at one point they talked about entering a bomb-defusal tournament.

The final stage was cleared shortly after the 2 hour 25 minute mark. The group then spent its reward money on outfits, remarked that it was already 11:30 p.m., and said it would look for another time to play after resting. Chat sent goodnights as the stream closed.