Meltdown

The first nuclear reactors were amazing feats of engineering. Over the course of a year, they had ramped up from the first proof of concept at Chicago Pile 1 to the massive constructions that produced the plutonium and uranium used in nuclear weapons. Mechanisms for cooling, venting, shielding, and monitoring had to be brought together on a scale yet unseen and untested.

Once the reaction was underway, constant vigilance and effort was needed to ensure safe operation. Systems here and there could fail, and be repaired, but if too many began to crash they would have to SCRAM, to kill the reaction. Costly in both time and resources, a SCRAM might set the whole Manhattan Project back by months.

The reaction is live. Can you and your colleagues keep this marvel of physics and engineering operating, during a time when your country calls upon your keenest dedication to the task? Or will you fail and go down in history as allowing the world's first nuclear meltdown?

Meltdown is a cooperative game for 1 to 4 players in which you work together as coordinators to direct the repairs and maintenance of a prototype nuclear reactor. You will collect specialized workers and direct them on the repairs of faults and failures that emerge around the system. The players collectively win after exhausting the supply of system failure cards. They lose if the reactor goes into meltdown, represented by the SCRAM token reaching the fifth space of the meltdown track.