Countdown: 5 Minutes to Self-Destruction is a real-time cooperative dice-rolling game about escaping a space research station being invaded by alien forms trying to get their hands on human advanced technology. The self-destruction mechanism has been triggered and players only have 5 minutes to kill the aliens blocking their way to the emergency exit hatch. Players are dealt six face-down alien cards showing the hit pattern to complete in order to kill the alien. The hit patterns consist in 4 or 5 dice in various colors and values. When the game starts, a timer is triggered, all players flip the first card in their deck, and then simultaneously roll dice as fast as they can, in order to complete the hit patterns lying in front of them. Once a pattern is complete, the player flips the next card and starts rolling dice again to complete the new pattern revealed. Dice can (and in some cases must) be passed between players to complete their patterns. If all players manage to complete all the patterns they were dealt at the beginning of the game, they reach the escape pod safely and leave the space station unharmed. However, if the timer reaches zero before all patterns are completes, the space station explodes with aliens and humans aboard, and everyone lose.