Cyberpunk 2077 - The Board Game DEMO Review
Work with friends to run in, do the objectives, and get out… in real time!
This real-time game set in the CyberPunk 2077 universe has you running through missions in rounds of 2 minutes, as you kill guards and upgrade your characters to play more cards! 2-4 players, 60-90 minutes. App integration recommended, demo featured.
Video published September 3rd, 2024
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Drop 1 card a turn, activate unlocked symbols in any order!
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Accomplish as much as you can in 2 minute rounds! App optional.
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Open/close doors as you puzzle through each map.
This is a sponsored post. Demo featured.
The Story
This is a Demo, where the full game will be 4x bigger!
And yes we used the android app for all of our plays!
PLAYS
2 Player: 4 Plays, completed the entire Demo. Last mission we had to play twice.
Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!
Component Pros (in context of this being real-time)
Awesome looking minis with cool bases
Recessed player boards with plenty of areas for cards, tokens, cubes
Cool art from Cyberpunk 2077 on game boards, characters, cards
Weapons look really cool, with own dice!
Cards have very intuitive symbols, so easy to track in real-time
Taking wounds tells a story as they look progressively worse
Serviceable insert for everything
App (on Android) is very polished
SFX, automating time, cool VoiceOver
Gameplay Pros — Real-time elements meet mechanics well
Turns of just dropping 1 easy to read card makes turn crispy clean
Must constantly scan hand and board state/personal capabilities
Can do unlocked symbols in any order so that’s a quick puzzle
Able to take mental breaks of simply increasing Ram/HP by 1 to plan for later rounds
Excitement can come in planned waves
Some turns just craft items, increase boosters/ram. Other runs spend them
e.g. kill 2 5 HP enemies in 1 turn by chaining normal card, then crafting card, then boosters, then use quick hack (ram spending)
Flexibility of icons works great with booster/crafting system
Boosters/crafting give any symbol, so not completely beholden to cards in hand or deck comp
e.g. Crafting is letting orange hand become any symbol in the game, as long as have item
e.g. Healing gets boosters flipped (Ram, movement, attack, or orange hand)
9-10 card deck means you can get away with playing more sloppy if go through deck really fast
If play slower and more methodically, can puzzle away crafting/boosters for more efficient play
Damage system of adding useless wound card to deck is easy to track and effectively punishing
Taking damage disincentives going in guns blazing always
Risk for opponent to roll “0”, which drops you to lowest health no matter what
Rolling dice is spending valuable time, so less reason to take damage
2 Minutes per round just feels very well timed for 9-10 card deck
Can go through deck at least once, maybe 2.5 times if play really fast, so can’t blame card draw for being locked out of doing things
Gameplay Pros — Movement Puzzling
Space around objectives AND loot
Going to loot requires more movement, which gets you further from exit/objectives
Possibility to explode walls to make your own path
Can open/close doors on enemies to manipulate line of sight
“Zoom” icon possibility to treat floor like ice and dash to the end of a corridor
Can wait for enemies to move between rounds, and rest up
Can only gain benefits of loot in between rounds, so incentived to rush to get as many as possible before each round ends to use it next round
Puts immediate pressure from get-go
Gameplay Pros — Teamwork Potential
Breather phase in between rounds lets you discuss over which crafting cards to get
Conversation naturally arises even if not talkative, since have to see what they’d use crafting cards for
Timed phase: half of character’s ability can only be used on others (usually cheaper one), so incentivized to use
e.g. prevent enemy die roll if they would get shot
Harder objectives require teammate to do a thing when you’re on an objective space
Gameplay Pros — Progression within each mission
Getting more brainpower of a color quickly increases each card’s output
Lvl 1 -> Lvl 2 doubles symbols get (get 2 ram instead of 1)
Legend cards off of loot unlock 4th row of symbols and are stronger
e.g. if lvl 3, do 6 damage to 1 shot enemy
More stuff to do on each card drop means have to think harder
Get more boosters for more free symbols
Can spend ram to get new abilities (called quick hacks), will discuss in cons
Upgrading weapon is satisfying in rolling a better die
e.g. give 3 hits instead of 1
Final mission has 2 maps back to back for fantastic use of progression
Keep all the same upgrades, HP, weapons, etc.
Last map has 5 minutes, only 1 round to win for mega tension in demo’s finale
Gameplay Pros — Character Asymmetry
You can spec your character in about any color you want every time you play
Usually have 1 color that is good to prioritize, for second can be anything
e.g. the aggro Jackie goes for blue so he can heal more
Choose what region of board you want to run to after picking your upgrade strategy, that color loot tends to upgrade itself (blue loot leans towards upgrading blue)
Can craft to upgrade any color you want
4 Characters have own quick hacks and starting deck size
V (vanilla character) is all rounder with forgiving dual-colored card and bigger deck
Has ability to prevent enemy die roll
Jackie (meathead) rolls a different die, and can dual-wield weapons to roll 2 dice
Gets to re-roll his dice once!
Panama Palmer (sniper) shoots any enemy on the board
Ability to move teammates is clutch
Judy Alvarez (Hacker) can open any door on the map
If spends enough Ram can add 10 seconds
Runs true to time Pros
Inherently runs true to time with timed rounds
2 Player once down is 60 minutes including setup
3rd mission with 2 maps is a little over an hour
Component Cons (Remember this is a demo)
Rulebook is clogged with repetitive information as it re-lists old mechanics alongside new mechanics
Needs a better player aid
Current one gives steps after a round in basically 0 detail
Enemy movement could explain how they move
Enemy minis are too hard to adjust health in real time
Dotted health is sometimes hard to tell apart from afar
Jackie mini came broken, him being attached at toe maybe means it’s inherently fragile?
Booster is hard to pick up and flip for how often you use it, slot into player board only works to slow you down
POTENTIAL FIX: Make it a die you can spin back and forth?
No way to track objectives, so sometimes get confused which ones you copleted
Just needs a cardboard piece to cover it when done
Gameplay Cons — Buyable Quickhacks too expensive
Received between rounds facedown at 4 ram to unlock
Abilities are a little bit weaker on character abilities on average
Receiving them mid-game, are you going to spend 6-7 ram to use an ability once or twice- no you’d rather just spend it on current quick hack
Sometimes need to save ram for objectives
4 Ram is such a large amount not used for anything else, weird to save to
Ties back to how any resource can be any resource, so want to be efficient with it
Don’t want to bother with physical effort of tracking another quick hack and flipping over in real-time for its ram cost
Judy Alvarez is able to afford quickhacks easier with her cards
POTENTIAL FIX: Quickhack discounted to 2 ram, and maybe require crafting to unlock (a much more common symbol and gives more)
Flavor meeting Gameplay Cons — Very disjointed
Buildup with flavor text and narration doesn’t meet the highly puzzl-y abstract missions
Essentially going to ABCD and doing a mechanical thing, then running out every time
e.g. “Take down the sniper” is going to objective C and spending 2 attack. But there is no sniper on the board, this is just something “done”
Game didn’t go extra mile to sell theme, like adding minis, markers, or extra cards
Can’t fault them too hard because this is real-time, so that would make that messy
Easy to check out of the beginning and ending VoiceOver
Name dropping is confusing because we have no association to that mid-game
Decision of whether or not to kill Dex after scenario 2 has no proper buildup
Not sure if anything happened in this demo from our choice
POTENTIAL FIX: Game could go harder on app integration for more theme
check on your progress after each round is over, maybe spawn more enemies with regards to initial VO
Worried about disjointedness because not sure about how this will matter for full campaign which is 4x bigger
Tentative Score - 7/10 Good
The core mechanics are very solid- with the one card play from hand unleashes multiple symbols working well for real-time, with a steep progression payoff and objectives to teamwork around.
It’s really something that gets you that rush of franticness of doing a video game cooperative mission, as you burst into a place together and run out together, doing your choice of killing, moving, and/or utility.
It really revels in being hectic!
In fact, the game was so tight that Adam and I failed the final mission and had to redo, which got us thinking, maybe 4 players alleviates the hecticness a little more, since there’s no difficulty adjustment which seems weirdly rigid, like hey, what if you’re slow at shuffling your deck cause you do that multiple times a round, but hey, it’s a demo it’s supposed to be basic.
You’re constantly doing things, with turns so fast and you constantly scanning your hand and occasionally helping teammates that your turn is really everyone’s turn. And just like we said in cons, this system could actually be used for a bunch of themes, I could easily see an cooking themed game like this doing REALLY WELL.
Is Cyberpunk going to take the leap of being more puzzl-y and brain-burning, and make scenarios even MORE stressful as you get deeper, with I imagine to be longer scenarios that forces you to squeeze the most out of hands filled with legend cards? Or will it lean more casual to cater to an audience who maybe enjoys it more for the theme and the chance to share cyberpunk with non-gamer friends and family? After all, currently you could just totally skip the flavor text which cuts out some of the commitment barrier.
That’s the thing, it feels like Cyberpunk is cutting out a lot of thematic elements to make it easier to play, since it’s already not the easiest real-time game to pick up. Like we mentioned the scenario objectives are a thematic wash, but also crafting isn’t even trying to tell a story! And it could’ve been something- like maybe show a grenade for doing 3 damage, or jetpacks for 2 movement. And cards are likely like this so it’s really easy to tell what the card is at a glance, so interesting trade-off here that makes the game lean drier, but easier to learn.
One more thing we wanted to mention that didn’t fit anywhere else: since this is real-time with a lot of different types of components, certain actions are just worse, and we’re not sure if they’re intentionally made that way.
One more thing we wanted to mention that didn’t fit anywhere else: since this is real-time with a lot of different types of components, certain actions are just worse, and we’re not sure if they’re intentionally made that way.
Like, starting your turn locked with an enemy causes you to roll die, and rolling die is wasting time as you have to look at the dice, then update both you and enemy health. Or doing potshots at an enemy, then moving down their tracker bit by bit is worse than just one-shotting them to just wipe their mini off cleanly. Or, how adding an explosion adds a token to the board, which is something to pick up from the side and physically add on but hey it’s an explosion I guess it’s ok if it takes a little bit longer?
Wait is this game Euro propaganda against ametirash gamers? Like, dice rolling is bad here, you want to just move around the cubes and optimize cards from hand that are symbols!
Anyways, the full game is supposed to be 4x bigger! It has an immersive campaign, allegedly new types of enemies, diverse missions and objectives , a living Night city filled with dangerous enemies… and more tools… and new game modes… so yeah, this all seems very promising, and if they take the core gameplay loop here it seems very promising, but we can’t call this demo great with too much inherent abstraction and component hiccups.
