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Fast Look: NEON HOPE
Designers: Francesco Grothe, Dominik Schönleben
Artists: Robert Herzig, Consuelo Pecchenino
Writer: Hopeful Video games
Yr Revealed: 2026 (At the moment on Kickstarter! Hyperlink on the backside of assessment)
No. of Gamers: 1-4
Ages: 14+
Enjoying Time: 90-120 minutes.
From the Writer:
Will the tech giants take over? Or is there nonetheless hope for a glitched utopia?
In Neon Hope, you might have the prospect to struggle again towards cyberpunk’s grim imaginative and prescient of the long run. Dystopia appears inevitable, however the worst is but to return. You may nonetheless change the world for the higher – don’t lose hope! This cooperative sport takes interactive storytelling to the following degree, the place your multi-layered selections will form a branching narrative.
Neon Hope brings collectively strategic card play and fascinating storytelling in a singular European science-fiction setting. Every sport in Neon Hope is one a part of an even bigger story. Think about it like an episode of a TV collection, which culminates in a giant season finale. After every episode, your characters get better their energy, enhance their skills, and proceed their journey within the subsequent sport.
The sport combines each rising and scripted narrative to inform its story. In every episode, a number of playing cards are randomized to offer a diversified expertise on repeat playthroughs. On the similar time, a written narrative guides you thru the story and presents you with varied key selections, branching out to one in all many endings.
Disclaimer: The writer supplied the prototype copy of NEON HOPE. The opinions expressed within the assessment are utterly my very own. The elements, guidelines and every thing you see are all WIP on the time of writing.
Evaluate:
Overview:
Neon Hope is a card primarily based storytelling sport set in a dystopian utopia. It may be performed solo or as a cop-op sport the place you tackle the roles of on a regular basis individuals within the not so distant future, and the place you stumble into conditions which might be a lot larger than something you might have been ready for.
The designers have acknowledged that the sport is supposed to really feel like you might be enjoying by way of an episode of a television present, the place issues that work towards you and the encounters / individuals you cope with are represented by playing cards.
Guidelines & Setup:
Within the copy I acquired to assessment, there are 2 of the sport’s characters so that you can play, and a few issue ranges so that you can strive, that means that even with this slimmed down model there are a number of completely different video games / ranges to expertise.
The set-up took round 10-Quarter-hour as I needed to re-read a few sections greater than as soon as to get the proper playing cards for the situation / character I used to be enjoying accurately, and possibly this wants a little bit bit higher readability within the closing rule guide.
Regardless of it being a card sport that was in a small field (lower than A4 measurement) it did / will take up fairly an space when establishing and through play to accommodate the playing cards and completely different areas it’s worthwhile to place them in your desk.
There are fairly a number of photos / diagrams within the Quickstart Guidelines information that got here with the sport, and on the entire they’re effectively finished, and the sequence has been thought out to make sure they circulation properly, particularly if like myself you haven’t performed many video games of this sort.
Theme and Mechanics:
As talked about earlier, the theme is that of a close to distant utopian world during which you play an on a regular basis member of society, and you end up having a collection of encounters and should navigate them as a way to outwit and survive the forces which might be seemingly working towards you.
The mechanics play easily, and one of the simplest ways for me to explain it’s that it feels much like the previous Combating Fantasy books from the 1980’s (which I cherished) the place the alternatives you made influenced the story and whether or not you survived the journey or not, so for me that was an enormous plus.
Gameplay:
Every participant picks a personality they may play within the sport, and so they then arrange their hand of playing cards and anything they’re instructed to do earlier than embarking on the story ‘episode’.
Every participant’s flip consists of three actions, and these actions may be taken in any order, with different gamers taking an motion in between yours whether it is useful to take action, and all actions should be taken by a participant earlier than that participant can go.
The gamers proceed to take actions / turns till both the storyline goal has been met that means they’ve accomplished and received this specific story, or they lose by both taking an excessive amount of stress or the Surveillance has been elevated / met the best threshold degree.
There are a number of Actions a participant can take throughout their flip, and they’re;
Change Location – Merely transfer your characters standee to a different location that’s in play, which may be at any setting.
Activate – To make use of sure skills on playing cards it’s worthwhile to take the Activate motion which is indicated by the ACTION icon.
Carry out a Job – This specific motion is the primary means during which you’ll be interacting with the sport, and there are 4 potential TASK actions you are able to do, that are;-
To carry out a job, that are discovered on LEADS, ENEMIES, STATES & TOOLS playing cards, you will need to first decide the sort, attribute and issue degree of the duty.
Your base worth can be equal to your attribute matching the attribute of the duty, specifically;
- PERCEPTION
- COURAGE
- CHARISMA
- TECHNOLOGY
You may optionally modify your attribute by both enjoying an ACTION card matching the kind of the duty, or by spending a cost of the attribute assist marker, once more matching the attribute of the duty. This provides a +2 modifier, and may be performed by both your self or different gamers at your setting.
Nonetheless, if you carry out a job you have to to disclose a random modifier from the grid of hidden modifier tokens, which may also modify your attribute, both positively or negatively. These modifier tokens keep revealed till the grid is reset, which is completed when all of the tokens have been revealed in the course of the sport. The one ones that aren’t counted for reset functions are the three in / on the archive card, though these are included and changed throughout any reset.
You may Examine LEADS, that are double sided playing cards that characterize locations you go to, and folks you discuss to throughout your sport.
You may Get Help from LEADS as an Examine motion, and in case you do you acquire a assist marker of your alternative for doing so, which is positioned in your enjoying space. There are several types of Help Markers, that are
Attribute – which enters play with 2 ‘expenses’, and you may spend 1 cost throughout a job matching the assist marker so as to add a +2 modifier to your job.
Hope – which may be spent to forestall Stress.
Assets – which may be spent to buy instruments at particular factors in the course of the sport.
You may FIGHT an enemy, and every profitable struggle offers 1 harm to it, and as soon as an enemy reaches harm equal to or higher than its well being it’s defeated and eliminated to the encounter discard pile.
The final job on the record is HACK, during which you try to efficiently hack a State, and in case you do then you definitely place a hacking dice on one of many empty dice slots, and if all of those are coated then the State is defeated and is once more positioned within the encounter discard pile.
Some duties might also have a THREAT worth, which is resolved in case your modified worth of the duty is decrease than the risk worth of the duty being tried.
Once you carry out any TASK you will need to play a card out of your hand, and the motion sort of that card MUST match the kind of motion you want to carry out. The performed card is positioned in your discard pile.
When you full a job then you definitely acquire 1 useful resource as a reward for doing so, and a job is accomplished in case you take away the final ‘secret’ from a card, or receive the final Attribute Help Marker from it, deal the final level of harm to it or by putting the ultimate HACK token on it.
When you’ve got no playing cards left then it’s worthwhile to FOCUS. You then carry out these steps;
Recuperate all playing cards
Decrease your ENDURANCE by 1
Take quite a few ACTION playing cards again into your hand primarily based in your new Endurance degree.
It’s also possible to at this level buy a software or instruments out of your software equipment, so long as you might have the sources to take action, and place them in your play space.
Art work and Parts:
For a prototype / assessment copy the standard of the elements had been prime notch, proper all the way down to correctly printed cube (not simply blanks with stickers as with some I’ve seen), and the playing cards had been additionally thick sufficient to take a number of handlings with out changing into flimsy.
The art work actually does convey that feeling of a dystopian period / setting.
The Good:
The sport performed good and easy, and the storyline narrative has been finished to an excellent normal from what I can confirm by way of this scaled down assessment copy.
The Different:
The one situation I had was the preliminary arrange directions and what to do / put into every card deck, because it wasn’t completely clear to me till I’d learn it a number of instances.
Closing Ideas:
I performed the sport on each Regular (1 character) and Onerous (each characters) issue ranges, profitable the conventional sport, and shedding the tougher issue sport, however completely loved each video games.
In case you are a fan already of a lot of these story pushed narrative card video games then I feel it is best to definitely take a look at the present Kickstarter marketing campaign, which I consider a 2026 supply date, and in case you haven’t tried one in all these then you could effectively like to start your foray into this style with Neon Hope.
I’ll definitely be maintaining a tally of this throughout its marketing campaign to see what the designers have in retailer for the sport.
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Carl King- Reviewer
