Would you like early entry to our giveaways? Do you need to learn our critiques earlier than your pals?
Fast Look: NEON HOPE
Designers: Francesco Grothe, Dominik Schönleben
Artists: Robert Herzig, Consuelo Pecchenino
Writer: Hopeful Video games
12 months Printed: 2026 (Presently on Kickstarter! Hyperlink on the backside of assessment)
No. of Gamers: 1-4
Ages: 14+
Taking part in 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’ve the prospect to combat again in opposition to cyberpunk’s grim imaginative and prescient of the long run. Dystopia appears inevitable, however the worst is but to come back. You possibly can nonetheless change the world for the higher – don’t lose hope! This cooperative recreation 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 charming storytelling in a novel European science-fiction setting. Every recreation in Neon Hope is one a part of a much bigger story. Think about it like an episode of a TV sequence, which culminates in an enormous season finale. After every episode, your characters get better their power, enhance their skills, and proceed their journey within the subsequent recreation.
The sport combines each rising and scripted narrative to inform its story. In every episode, a number of playing cards are randomized to supply a different expertise on repeat playthroughs. On the identical 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 fully my very own. The elements, guidelines and all the pieces you see are all WIP on the time of writing.
Assessment:
Overview:
Neon Hope is a card primarily based storytelling recreation set in a dystopian utopia. It may be performed solo or as a cop-op recreation 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 are a lot larger than something you’ve been ready for.
The designers have acknowledged that the sport is supposed to really feel like you might be taking part in by means of an episode of a television present, the place issues that work in opposition to you and the encounters / individuals you take care of are represented by playing cards.
Guidelines & Setup:
Within the copy I obtained to assessment, there are 2 of the sport’s characters so that you can play, and a few problem ranges so that you can attempt, which means that even with this slimmed down model there are a couple of totally 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 state of affairs / character I used to be taking part in accurately, and perhaps this wants a bit bit higher readability within the last rule guide.
Regardless of it being a card recreation 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 totally different areas you have to place them in your desk.
There are fairly a couple of photos / diagrams within the Quickstart Guidelines information that got here with the sport, and on the entire they’re effectively carried out, 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 kind.
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 sequence of encounters and should navigate them so as to outwit and survive the forces which are seemingly working in opposition to you.
The mechanics play easily, and one of the best ways for me to explain it’s that it feels much like the previous Combating Fantasy books from the 1980’s (which I beloved) 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 are going to play within the recreation, they usually 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 helpful to take action, and all actions should be taken by a participant earlier than that participant can cross.
The gamers proceed to take actions / turns till both the storyline goal has been met which means they’ve accomplished and received this explicit 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 you have to take the Activate motion which is indicated by the ACTION icon.
Carry out a Job – This explicit motion is the principle approach during which you may be interacting with the sport, and there are 4 attainable TASK actions you are able to do, that are;-
To carry out a activity, that are discovered on LEADS, ENEMIES, STATES & TOOLS playing cards, you should first decide the sort, attribute and problem degree of the duty.
Your base worth might be equal to your attribute matching the attribute of the duty, particularly;
- PERCEPTION
- COURAGE
- CHARISMA
- TECHNOLOGY
You possibly can optionally modify your attribute by both taking part in an ACTION card matching the kind of the duty, or by spending a cost of the attribute help 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.
Nevertheless, once you carry out a activity you will have 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 finished when all of the tokens have been revealed in the course of the recreation. 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 possibly can Examine LEADS, that are double sided playing cards that signify locations you go to, and other people you discuss to throughout your recreation.
You possibly can Get Help from LEADS as an Examine motion, and in the event you do you acquire a help marker of your selection for doing so, which is positioned in your taking part in space. There are several types of Help Markers, that are
Attribute – which enters play with 2 ‘costs’, and you’ll spend 1 cost throughout a activity matching the help marker so as to add a +2 modifier to your activity.
Hope – which may be spent to stop Stress.
Sources – which may be spent to buy instruments at particular factors in the course of the recreation.
You possibly can FIGHT an enemy, and every profitable combat offers 1 injury to it, and as soon as an enemy reaches injury equal to or higher than its well being it’s defeated and eliminated to the encounter discard pile.
The final activity on the record is HACK, during which you try to efficiently hack a State, and in the event 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 may 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 should 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.
In the event you full a activity then you definitely acquire 1 useful resource as a reward for doing so, and a activity is accomplished in the event 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.
In case you have no playing cards left then you have to FOCUS. You then carry out these steps;
Recuperate all playing cards
Decrease your ENDURANCE by 1
Take numerous ACTION playing cards again into your hand primarily based in your new Endurance degree.
You may also at this level buy a device or instruments out of your device package, so long as you’ve the sources to take action, and place them in your play space.
Art work and Elements:
For a prototype / assessment copy the standard of the elements have been prime notch, proper right down to correctly printed cube (not simply blanks with stickers as with some I’ve seen), and the playing cards have been additionally thick sufficient to take a number of handlings with out turning into flimsy.
The paintings actually does convey that feeling of a dystopian period / setting.
The Good:
The sport performed good and clean, and the storyline narrative has been carried out to an excellent customary from what I can verify by way of this scaled down assessment copy.
The Different:
The one challenge 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 couple of instances.
Remaining Ideas:
I performed the sport on each Regular (1 character) and Laborious (each characters) problem ranges, successful the traditional recreation, and dropping the tougher problem recreation, however totally loved each video games.
In case you are a fan already of most of these story pushed narrative card video games then I feel you must definitely take a look at the present Kickstarter marketing campaign, which I imagine a 2026 supply date, and in the event you haven’t tried one in all these then chances are you’ll 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.
Did you again it primarily based on our assessment? Please remark under letting us know!
Do you discover that you just’re lacking too many critiques as we drop them? Present your identify and e mail under and we’ll preserve you within the know of what we reviewed that week in addition to different scorching information!!!!!
Carl King- Reviewer
