The mechanism driving core-collapse supernovae is poorly understood, and is even less established for exotic highly energetic and rapidly rotating explosions. High-performance computing has proven to be an invaluable tool for understanding details of the explosion mechanism and for showing us the limits of our understanding. I will discuss how I have used computing to explore what drives the more peculiar explosions involving strong magnetic fields and rapid rotation and which observable signals could give us key information about the physics involved.
