Manual

GODFUSE: TRIALS

A tactical first-person bomber. You place bombs in a maze, blast your way out and survive — while somebody watches you do it, and can get bored.

Deutsche Fassung

  1. The idea in three sentences
  2. The bomb
  3. Controls
  4. The four modes
  5. The eleven worlds
  6. The enemies
  7. Elites
  8. Pickups & mutations
  9. Special bombs
  10. The Fuse God
  11. The Eye
  12. Bosses
  13. The Anomaly
  14. Between levels
  15. Paths
  16. Workshop
  17. Oaths & threat
  18. Leaderboards
  19. Ten things you learn late

The idea in three sentences

You stand in a grid of 15 × 13 tiles. Solid pillars cannot be destroyed, crates can — and everything you need is behind them.

Your weapon is the bomb. It explodes in a cross, it hits you too, and it can set off other bombs. The entire game grows out of that one rule: anyone good does not blast one enemy, they build a chain.

And above it all stands the Fuse God. He rewards nerve and punishes caution. Hide, and you lose his favour. Build chains, and you gain it — and sooner or later he comes down himself.

The bomb

Everything else is trimming. The bomb is the game.

Placing

A short press on the place button drops a bomb on your tile. It burns for 2.8 seconds and then explodes in a cross, as far as your range reaches. Walls stop the flame, crates are destroyed and stop it as well — unless you have Pierce.

Cooking — the most important skill in the game

Hold the place button down and you light the bomb in your hand. A bar under the crosshair shows how far the fuse has burned. Let go and it drops with whatever fuse is left — as little as 0.35 seconds.

That is the difference between „eventually“ and „now“. A cooked bomb goes off exactly when the enemy arrives.

But

After 2.2 seconds it goes off in your hand. There is no warning except the bar. Cooking is the fastest way to a chain — and the fastest way to blow yourself up.

Throwing

Right mouse button (or THROW): the bomb flies up to four tiles in the direction you are looking. Throw over crates to hit things you cannot reach — or to start a chain from a safe distance. A cooked bomb can be thrown.

Kicking

Walk into a bomb lying on the ground and you kick it. It slides until it hits something. A kick down the right corridor clears the whole thing.

The panic fuse

F detonates a bomb under you instantly — and it does not hurt you. It is the ripcord for when you are boxed in. In the first three levels you have two charges, after that one. It sits at the crosshair as a .

Chains

A bomb caught in another one's fire goes off with it. Two kills in quick succession are a combo, five are a chain, twelve are an event. Chains give more score, more scrap and considerably more favour than the same number of separate kills.

The blaster

A bonus tool, not a replacement. You start with three shots; refills sit in crates but get rarer from level 4 on. It kills at range but makes no chains — and chains are what the God lives on. On a phone it aims for you within a generous cone.

Controls

ActionKeyboard & mouseControllerTouch
MoveWASDLeft stickLeft stick
LookMouseRight stickSwipe right side
Place / cook bombHold SpaceHold AHold PLACE
ThrowRight mouse buttonBTHROW
BlasterLeft mouse buttonRTFIRE
Panic fuseFXDET
PauseEscStart⏸ top right
Sound on/offMOptions
Clip modeHOptions
RecordingShift+ROptions

Every key can be reassigned in the options. Clip mode hides the HUD, the messages and the touch controls — for recording with OBS or your phone's screen capture. The game carries on as normal.

The four modes

Campaign

Eleven levels, eleven worlds, fixed order. Bosses on levels 3, 6 and 9, the finale on level 11. Between levels you buy in the shop and make decisions. Finish the campaign and you have seen the game — but not exhausted it.

Daily challenge

Every day one world for everyone. The same maze, the same crate contents, the same enemy placements. Whoever has the best run played it better — not rolled better. One attempt counts for the leaderboard; that is all it takes.

Weekly challenge

The same principle, but with seven days. Longer, harder, with room to practise.

The Anomaly

The endless mode. No levels but waves — a new one every 65 seconds, and the world changes with each of them. Every system in the game runs at once here: the God, the Eye, chaos rules, minibosses, the core zone. It does not end. The only question is how far you get.

The eleven worlds

Every world has a hazard of its own — a mechanic that exists nowhere else and that you have to know.

LevelWorldIts hazard
1Neon CityLasers seal corridors on a fixed beat
2MonochromePresses briefly invert your controls
3 BossSpray ZonePaint on the floor that slows you down
4VoidLow gravity — everything drifts on
5The Red CoreDestroyed crates grow back
6 BossEmber ShaftLava pools and vents
7The ResonanceCrystals charge up and discharge
8Frost ChamberIce — you slide past your target
9 BossCryptWebs hold you in place
10Toxic ZoneGas clouds that push your blasts around
11 FinaleStone HallNone. Just him.

All eleven appear in the Anomaly, in random order — one per wave.

The enemies

The hunters

ChaserWalks straight at you. The most common enemy and the most honest.
BomberPlaces bombs of its own. The reason you do not back into corridors.
WandererDrifts about aimlessly. Only dangerous when you overlook it.
ThrowerThrows from a distance. Cover helps.

The special ones

PhantomVanishes and reappears somewhere else. No wall stops it.
ArmourSurvives several hits. Aim assist never locks onto it.
SplitterBreaks into two smaller ones when it dies. Do not kill it in a tight spot.
BrooderKeeps producing reinforcements. Deal with it first.

The world-changers

These five rebuild the maze while you are standing in it. They are the reason a route you memorised no longer holds two minutes later.

The GardenerPlants new crates and closes corridors.
The ShifterShoves you one tile — usually straight into the fire.
The BuilderWalls things up. Every wall makes it tougher itself.
The DiggerBreaks open new routes. Sometimes for you, mostly for them.
The ThiefCollects pickups. From four items on it pulls them towards itself. Kill it and it drops everything.

Important

If you hear a falling three-note chime in the distance, the Thief has just picked up something that would have been yours. Rising chimes are yours.

Elites

From level 3 on, any enemy can appear as an elite — you can tell by the outline around its body. One affix, a much harder enemy, much more reward.

SwiftNoticeably faster.
ArmouredTakes considerably more.
ToxicLeaves a trail that slows you down.
ExplosiveDetonates on death. Do not stand next to it.
UnseenOnly visible while moving.

Pickups & mutations

Crates hold range, bombs, speed, ammo, lives, shields — and occasionally something bigger.

Mutations

A mutation changes every bomb you place from then on. You can only have one, but it levels up (the second level also gives +1 range).

Aggressive+1 range, hotter
DefensiveFreezes enemies
The VoidEvery seventh bomb becomes a black hole
CorruptBrutally strong — hits you too
ReverbThe blast comes twice

Special bombs

Single items from your stock, counted in the top bar. They replace your next bomb.

InfernoTwo tiles more range — the flame eats through crates.
ClusterA second small blast goes off at the end of every arm.
GrenadesThrown bombs explode almost immediately on landing.
Black HolePulls everything nearby together before it tears apart.
GambleAny one of these. You find out when it goes off.
SingularityThe largest blast in the game. Very rare.

The Fuse God

He is not an enemy, he is an audience. You collect favour by playing the way he wants to watch: chains, elites, combos, risk.

FavourTierWhat happens
90He notices youSomething has spotted you.
230He leans inHe wants to see more.
430He laughsThe world starts reacting.
700He intervenesReality flickers.
1050He descends

He gets bored

Dig into a corner and wait, and you lose favour. That is not a penalty for playing badly, it is one for playing dully. With every tier he also drains the colour out of the world — the further you get, the more violet and the darker everything becomes.

Trials

At higher tiers he sets you tasks in the middle of a run. Pass and you get a lot; fail and it costs favour.

The SilenceSurvive without resupply.
The HunterBeat his champion.
The DuelJust the two of you.

The Eye

In the Anomaly an altar appears at irregular intervals. Stand inside it and the Eye comes down. You get one power — immediately, once, and it is strong.

Time RiftTen seconds are yours — the world runs in slow motion, you do not.
JudgementHalf the field falls at once.
Magnet StormEvery enemy is dragged to the centre — and lies there together.
BloodlustThe world goes dark and you become the hunter.
SingularityOne bomb that takes everything.
Black HoleA supply of holes for your next few bombs.
Golden GazeFor a short while everything turns into loot.

From wave 8 on the altar arrives roughly every 32 to 38 seconds. A Magnet Storm followed immediately by a cooked bomb in the centre is the most efficient chain the game allows.

Bosses

Bosses are invulnerable until their dome is open. It opens in phases — hit the marked spots and the core lies bare.

BossWhereLives
First bossLevel 310
Second bossLevel 611
Third bossLevel 912
The finaleLevel 1115

In the Anomaly a miniboss appears every four waves you survive — with 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16 and from the seventh on 18 lives. And in wave 19 the Fuse God descends himself: 20 lives and a repertoire of his own. He returns every ten waves, four lives heavier each time.

The Anomaly in detail

Waves

A new wave every 65 seconds: more enemies at once, faster reinforcements, harder types. The world changes with every wave as well — biome, light, hazard, all of it.

Arena rules

At fixed waves a rule comes into force and stays. „They come more often“, „In pairs“, „Golden harvest“, „Double shove“, „Fewer, but worse“, „Rifts in the sky“ — each shifts the balance for good.

Chaos

On top of that, chaos modifiers stack up and affect everything at once:

WeightlessFloating jumps
DarknessOnly your light and explosions illuminate
Hyper SpeedAll enemies +20 % speed
Overload+2 range — hits you too
FogThick fog, short sight
ScorchlandEvery blast leaves fire behind

The core zone

A marked area in the middle. Stand in it and you get more — and for that you have to stay exactly where everybody else is heading.

Corruption

Some worlds tip over. A corruption sharpens the hazard of the current world: „Burning Crypt“, „Acid Storm“, „Overgrown“, „Collapse“, „Meltdown“. Corruption and chaos never occur together — one of the two is enough.

Between levels

The shop

For scrap collected in the level. Every purchase lasts the whole run.

Range +1Bigger blast radius
Extra bombOne more bomb at a time
Speed +Faster on your feet
Ammo +5Blaster cells
Extra lifeOne more heart
Remote detonatorDetonate bombs with F
PierceFire goes through crates

World rules

Some levels come with a rule that applies from the first second. There are fourteen — among them Instability (every bomb reaches two tiles further, including towards you), Blood Toll (you start with a single life), Blind (no minimap), Short Fuse, His Wrath (more than twice as many elites) and Forgotten (no shop, scrap worthless).

Vaults

Now and then a crate holds a vault. It gives a blessing — and every blessing costs something:

The HungerMore force the fewer lives you have
Volcanic Blood+2 range — but −1 maximum life
Arsenal+2 bombs — but −1 maximum life
Frenzy+Speed — but enemies get faster too

The last door

Before the finale stands a door with a condition: Bombs only, Double horde, Blind or Hunted. You choose it yourself. After that there is no shop.

Paths

Before a run you choose a path. It changes your starting values and how the God judges you.

No pathNo requirements, no drawbacks.
The Fuse+2 bombs, +1 range. His own blasts hit him at full range — but chains impress him far more.
The SurvivorFaster, longer shields — but −1 range. He tests you much more often.
The MadmanStarts already mutated. Anomalies find him earlier — and he turns wrathful sooner.
The ArchitectRemote + extra bomb, but slower. He sees possible chains as lines — and small chains count as big ones.

Every path has a mastery: a task only that path can manage. The Fuse needs an armageddon without taking a single hit, the Architect a catastrophe with twelve kills in one chain.

Workshop

You earn cores in every run and they stay forever. The workshop improves your starting values — late tiers give you a head start, not a higher ceiling.

UpgradeEffectCost
Ammo Belt+5 starting ammo30
Blast Force+1 starting range40
Second Fuse+1 starting bomb60
Toughness+1 starting life120

Not in the challenges

In the daily and weekly challenge the workshop does not count. Everyone starts a shared world with the same gear, the same oath offer and all ten threat tiers open. Otherwise the leaderboard would compare runs that were never comparable.

Oaths & threat

Oaths

Before every run you can swear an oath — an extra task you set yourself. Keeping it unlocks something. There are eighteen, among them:

Threat tiers

Ten tiers of voluntary hardship. Each one stays active when you add the next.

1The GazeThey see you much further — and know where you are from the start.
2The HungerCrates give less.
3The AwakeningChaos begins as early as level 2.
4The HuntElite enemies from the very first level.
5The DoubtHealing often fails, shields hold shorter.
6The ChaseAll enemies are faster.
7The IndifferenceNobody helps you any more when you are nearly dead.
8The WeightBosses take more.
9The ImpatienceHe gets bored faster.
10The End of PatienceHe looks away. There is no saving you.

Leaderboards

There are two, and the split does not run between desktop and phone but between precise and imprecise input:

A controller on a phone plays like one on a desktop and therefore belongs in the same list. As soon as any precise input was used in a run, it counts towards the standard list. Pure touch runs get something in return: one enemy fewer at a time and 5 % more time between enemies.

Every mode has both lists — daily, weekly, campaign and Anomaly kept apart.

Ten things you learn late

  1. Cooking is not an extra option, it is the basic technique. Anyone who only places bombs is playing a different, slower game.
  2. The God counts chains, not kills. Five separate enemies give less than three in one chain.
  3. Waiting costs. Dig in and you actively lose favour.
  4. Range cuts both ways. Your blast hits you just the same. With Overload or Instability people die to their own bomb.
  5. The Brooder first. Everything else comes after.
  6. Never kill a Splitter in a tight spot. One becomes two, and they are standing right next to you.
  7. The panic fuse is not a weapon. It is the ripcord. Spend it offensively and you will not have it when it matters.
  8. A kick beats a throw when the corridor is straight — the bomb rolls further than you can throw.
  9. Magnet Storm plus a cooked bomb is the strongest combination in the game.
  10. Listen to the sound. Rising three-note chimes are your loot. Falling ones mean the Thief has it.

This manual describes the game as it stands at release. Values such as boss lives, wave length and costs can change with updates — inside the game the codex in the pause menu always takes precedence.

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