cyberpunkdreams Reviews

Lovely little game, well written in general, and plenty of choices. I've really been enjoying my time with the game, and am looking forward to more over the years.

"The notion that nature can be calculated inevitably leads to the conclusion that humans too can be reduced to basic mechanical parts..." So, welcome back. If you're here you probably know about this game, if not, here's my attempt at being brief. cyberpunkdreams is a really neat and overwhelmingly fresh game that's flourished over the years of development. I'm going to start this by saying I'm on the writing staff. So, yeah. I've been testing one version or another of this game off and on since 2016 through its alpha, beta, and now gamma. The testing I've done has been a lot longer than my working on things. So, understand. I know the flaws and where they are. I've been able to get this much time (18623 as of the edit) out of the game: A) Because cyberpunkdreams is meant to be taken in over time, and B) Because there is a massive amount of content to dig through (and the game is continuing to grow). cyberpunkdreams is a text based game, so the quality of the gameplay is in its writing, the quantity of said writing, and the choices you can make throughout it. Be prepared to make choices. Lots of choices: about who you are, why you're here, and how you interact with the world. Who are you? So, why are you here and what are you doing here? Well that's up to you, but most of us are here for a job. Whether that be an investigation or one last run in the core. You are for the most part a blank slate free to define yourself, having had your past scrubbed out of you to avoid being tracked and caught. There are always indications of who you once were, but that's a question for later. You're here to do a job and the path to doing that job is where the bulk of the content lies. So, what do you do in Cinci? For awhile you'll be scrounging around, learning the city, and engaging in various schemes to establish yourself. Given time though you'll start to engage in more and more lucrative trades and businesses, get your hands on higher quality equipment, and find better sources of income to successfully establish yourself. Challenge gangs, bring war to the streets. As the game is named, this is a cyberpunk game, and as the creator puts it: back to basics. cyberpunkdreams is a game about criminal activity, the punk aspect and how it relates to the cyber. The suffering and heights that come from that, living with the consequences of how you act and relating to your circumstance. You probably won't have much of that cyber stuff for awhile, but if you persist you can start getting your hands on the tech needed to start having an impact. It's up to you how you establish yourself, and the choices you make along the way define who your character is as a person. There are easy ways to make quick cash, and there are hard ways to make alot. How do you treat other people and interact with them? Are you a nice guy, the bastard who goes around breaking limbs, or somewhere inbetween? Most of us are somewhere inbetween. Go straight vigilante some day. It's fun. He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. Explore the world, learn about it, find stories within it. Meet its characters, build your resources, and develop an organisation of your own. Prepare for your mission, eventually you'll need to pick up the pieces and act on it. You need to make the right choices, and be ready at just the right time to make your impact. And remember, there are characters. An important part of this game is the characters, their stories and how they react to your choices and behaviours. Build a crew but word to the wise, don't look to make all of them part of your crew, it will drive you crazy trying to cater to all of them in the long term. Gameplay wise, well that's tough. This is a text based game built around choices, there are games resembling this but not of this level of complexity. Pick a storylet or branch, a card. Make a choice, see the impact and move forward. Fairly simple on the surface, but it's about building routines and growing as a character as you experience the writing. World wise it's a well thought out depiction of the mid future, we're somewhere around the 2090s, and things feel like it. A combination of climate change, societal collapse, and wars have broken America. Without going into the state of the rest of the world. Corporations drove privatisation and have strode through what was once the territory of the government. Taking over where the local government has faltered. Corruption is rampant, and everything is for sale. Technology has advanced, the panopticon is nearing a reality, and hope is dim unless we start a fire. So, about that cyber stuff. Technology is constantly moving forward, and the commodification of human advancement is a reality. Even basic knowledge and memory is mutable and implants are speeding this up with the development of spikes. This is particularly the subject of my content. So, Implants Implants Implants. There are some and we've been promised more. The ability to upgrade the human body and the symbiotes you take in. More radical body mods and prosthesis. The ones that are there are worthwhile in my mind, though you'll need to be pretty established to start picking them up. Being bulletproof is always a worthwhile goal. We're not at terminator levels yet, but that will happen for us if we want it and work for it. See you at the Harmont clinic. I don't have much more to say. How would I rate this game? Not perfect, but nothing is and the beauty in something is not in its perfection it's in the imperfections. The ones you can appreciate anyway. I certainly recommend this game, though I will admit bias at this point. I've been here awhile.

The game is a text driven game and a great create your own story narrative. However the game is repetitive and a lot of the side missions are just uncompletable. It hardly gives clues as to what your supposed to do and how you go about it. The errand running missions are the most frustrating. because you can't finish them. This has potential to be a great game however it just needs more time. I would have cooked this for a bit longer.

It's a great piece of cyberpunk, with a rich, gritty setting and a writing style that's that perfect mix of lyrically poignant and flatly cynical. It can get repetitive as you level up skills and manage the other minutiae of life, but the stories are captivating. Single quests have left me feeling more than some entire AAA games. Personally I like the limited action mechanic because it means I'm in for the long haul, I'm not going to burn through all the content in a matter of days and be left wanting more. 51 hours and I've hardly scratched the surface. It's amazing to me that this is all free. Definitely worth a try if you enjoy the cyberpunk genre!