System Crash - Cyberpunk Collectible Card Game

[Jaesun]

http://www.roguemoonstudios.com/systemcrash/index.html

The year is 2113. Technology, far from ushering in a golden age, has altered what it means to be human. And allowed greedy corporations to virtually enslave humanity under the yoke of consumerism and mass media. You are a ‘runner’, an agent operating outside the system, fighting to survive and thrive in the cracks between the shining towers of chrome and steel.​

You take on the illicit, high-risk jobs that the powers-that-be need deniability on. Whether it’s hacking a secure data server, extracting a defecting researcher from a corporate enclave or sabotaging a rival corp’s manufacturing plant, you’ll take it on if the money’s right.​

System Crash is a cyberpunk CCG (Collectible Card Game) with an engaging storyline, coming early 2013 to PC/Mac/Linux.​

Card duels represent ‘runs’, high-risk contracts from shadowy clientele. You are the run’s ‘controller’, the brains, the man or woman organizing and directing the run. To achieve your goal you need to accumulate ‘Objective Points’, an abstract measure of how much progress you’ve made toward that goal. Accumulate 30 OP and success is yours. However, if the opposing controller, usually the head of a corporate security force, accumulates 30 points before you then you have failed. Your Agents scatter to the streets to avoid capture and you must terminate your connection to avoid a trace on your physical location.​

How the run is approached is up to you! Recruit your agents, purchase equipment and software, execute your tactics!​

This sounds really fucking sweet.

 

[Kosmonaut]

Yeah, Naked Ninja game. Sounds awesome. I'm just getting into card games and somewhat it reminds me of Android: Runner.

 

[Sranchammer]

So it's basically Android:Netrunner?

 

[Jaesun]

At least it's for the PC.

 

[Excidium]

Yeah, Naked Ninja game. Sounds awesome. I'm just getting into card games and somewhat it reminds me of Android: Runner.

Wut. Wasn't it going to be an urban fantasy thing?

 

[Kosmonaut]

He changed of ideas every week. :/

 

[Jaesun]

http://garethfouche.com/beta

The Beta is now out (for Windows and Mac).

 

[Jaedar]

Downloading now. Will see if good.

Edit: It's not.

 

[Jaesun]

What's wrong with the BETA?

 

[Jaedar]

What's wrong with the BETA?

The mechanics mostly. Atmosphere is nice and all, but the gameplay is so incredibly shallow. It's possible you unlock nicer cards and such later in the game, but after 3 missions it just feels like it's an inferior version of MnM:duel of champions in a different setting.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Hey, thanks for the mention Jaesun.

So it's basically Android:Netrunner?

It's not really Android : Netrunner, despite the similar cyberpunk theme. It's somewhat like a mix between MtG and Spectromancer.

Also, thematically, Android is pretty much directly about hackers and hacking servers, System Crash has hacker cards, but there are also missions involving frontal assaults with machine guns and grenades and dudes on motorcycles.

The mechanics mostly. Atmosphere is nice and all, but the gameplay is so incredibly shallow. It's possible you unlock nicer cards and such later in the game, but after 3 missions it just feels like it's an inferior version of MnM:duel of champions in a different setting.

Sorry you didn't enjoy it. The early missions suffer a bit because of the low card variety, you've basically got a deck full of weak, low tier cards without many interesting abilities. As you say, more interesting cards unlock later.

It may be that I need to put more interesting cards in the starter deck, to make sure people don't get bored before they can unlock the better stuff. It's a bit of a juggling act, I could only afford to pay for art for 57 cards in the initial release (MtG had 300+ in 1st edition), and I need to save enough cards to provide regular rewards as the campaign progresses.

I am currently working on the later-game missions. Once I have those balanced and see how late-game reward distribution feels, I will return to the early game missions to see if I can put more of the exciting cards in earlier.

Hope you'll give it another try then.

I wanted Scars of War.

Best way to see an RPG finished by me is to buy System Crash. Think of it as a Kickstarter campaign, but instead of trivial trinkets as rewards I give you a complete game.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Glad you're enjoying it. The next beta release, coming soon, adds 19 new cards (for greater deck variety, especially in the early game) and a few new mechanics.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just played through the campaign. Seemed potentially interesting, but I basically just destroyed everything effortlessly with the assassin deck after trying them all out. Wei Lee is way too good.

Couple other notes:

The starter deck is awful. Why not use the 'Balanced' showcase in it's place? The starter deck is basically just 'I want to lose now'.

I suggest you repurpose the art on the awful starter cards (like civilians or neonmongers or that 1 credit card that lowers attack by 2, or the handgun) into better cards. It's just a waste of effort if nobody is going to use them later (and nobody is going to use them if given a choice, they do nothing for your tempo and just fill otherwise useful slots on the field and in your hand later on) and worse yet, gives people a bad impression of the gameplay. You can't really afford to make awful cards nobody wants to use with such a small list of cards. People will want to get more cards even if they already have a good deck to begin with, just for the sake of variety and personal preference. OTOH, nobody is going to want to get more cards if their impression of the game is that it sucks because the cards are boring things except the super rare expensive shit.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Thanks for trying out the game!

Btw, the "Showcase - X" decks are not really for playing the Campaign with. They're supposed to be powerful decks to showcase decks you can build when you unlock more cards in the campaign. They're not balanced against the starter missions at all, you WILL annihilate everything in the campaign demo with them. The campaign is balanced around starting with the Starter Deck and building on it as you unlock cards.

That being said...

The starter deck is awful.

Agreed. Not necessarily because it's too weak (it's intended to be below par, in terms of power, for campaign balance), but because it's fairly boring, without a lot of variety. Which obviously creates a bad first impression.

So the next version of the beta, hopefully releasing later this week, has 19 new cards in it, aimed at filling in the gaps, along with a fair amount of rebalancing of existing cards. The starter deck gets an upgrade in terms of variety, and you will unlock new cards more quickly in Campaign mode, opening up new options sooner.

I hope you'll give it a try and let me know what you think.

 

[Jaesun]

Beta 1.2.1.0 Is Here!
13JUL
It’s been a long road, friends, but final release is tantalizingly close, now.

Here at Rogue Moon Studios, it’s full steam ahead on getting System Crash to a release candidate. The content is in, gameplay has been tweaked and tuned, known bugs have been squashed, and there’s just this last stretch of campaign playtesting to get though.

And for that I need your help, ladies and gents.

Please, grab yourself a copy of either the windows beta installer or the zipped mac archive, install the 1.2.1.0 beta, and give the Neon Noir campaign a play.

The beta lets you play up to 13 missions, so give them a try and tell us what you think. Is it fun? Challenging? Do you want more?

Help me make System Crash the best game it can be.

Good luck, and watch out for black ICE!

 

[bloodlover]

A little too much inspiration from Gibson and Stephenson if you ask me... Also, any gameplay vids anywhere?

 

[Andhaira]

Naked Ninja Stop wasting time with this card game (your window closed when Hearthstone was released, even Magic the Gathering can't stand up to Blizzard's juggernaut card game) and go back to Scars of War. It's incredible, you could actually have been one of the first to take advantage of Kickstarter/crowdfunding, possibly raising a million+ bucks if you had stuck to it. There is still hope though, your game looked pretty good.

 

[anus_pounder]

So apparently, this shit is coming out tomorrow. Anyone else dropping some neo-shekels on this?

 

[Jaesun]

I just picked this up. Bought the deluxe version (still under $20 and want to support this guy). Deluxe version has the soundtrack (which I really like) and some wallpapers.

This is very much like the Shandalar like gameplay. Start out with a shitty deck, and slowly build it up from there. Interface and graphics are pretty cool. It really has the cyberpunk like feel. <3

Anyways liking it so far, still trying to understand some things.

There IS a demo for this, so you might give that a try if you like card games (like I do).

 

[Trash]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/481180/

The game is out on steam. For less than 15 euro as well. Like the atmosphere, art and interface so far. Still learning the gameplay. The dev said on his blog that one of his mistakes was adding a campaign since it cost him too much in time and resources. I'm glad he did though. It makes the game stand out and works pretty good as a hook for me. Anyway, got the game since it is both cheap and cyberpunk. Not to mention that I enjoyed Naked Ninja as a poster here.

For a second I thought it was that Quantum Quest game. Another cyberpunk themed game. Which looks like it might be quite neat in itself.

 

[ghostdog]

Congrats Naked Ninja !

So I guess this is basically for gathering funds to continue the development of Scars of war

 

[Trash]

A little too much inspiration from Gibson and Stephenson if you ask me... Also, any gameplay vids anywhere?

And that is bad how? The 'inspiration' does show though. I did laugh when actual characters from Gibson's work started showing up as cards.

 

[Jaesun]

Also Kate from the movie Hackers has a card too.

 

[Infinitum]

Bought this (at full price no less!), played through the campaign over a few evenings, got my money's worth. Used to playing Elves in legacy MTG so attempted to build something similar (weenies and tempo/card advantage), ended up losing a grand total of two games in the entire playthrough. Once when I put what pretty much amounted to the starter deck versus Marty in the arena, another versus one of the lategame anarch decks managing to kill 3 Ghosts with back to back Blackjacks w/ 9th Circle support and then chained System Crashes.

Putting my final iteration up below because why not? I challenge anyone to come up with something that beats it consistently. Security Credentials is beyond busted when paired with the card advantage c1's, flooding the board and your hand simultaneously. And, should the opponent manage to recover somehow and put up some midgame agents you can just reset the gamestate nigh-indefinetly using System Crash. Netting more card advantage and free damage using hasters. The c2 that tutors all combo pieces and cantriping cheap direct damage is just cherry on top. All in a package where the most expensive card is c3 (because System Crash is really a c2 event which you can't play until turn 5 without Hostiles; not that you'd want to mind you).

"Cool Runners" (I liked "Daft Punk" better, but 'twas before I replaced the Ner0's with Ghost)

AGENTS (20)
4x Lab Technician (c1)
4x Marty Tang (c1)
4x Rashard (c1)
4x Williams (c2)
4x Ghost (c3)

MODIFIERS (0)

EVENTS (16)
1x Hostile Takeover (c0)
4x Open Fire (c1)
4x Software Vulnerability (c1)
3x HE Grenade (c3)
4x System Crash (c5)

SUPPORT (4)
4x Security Clearance

Building towards it is easy too; start off with Marty's and card advantage c1-3's and upgrade as you go. Avoid Modifiers and high-cost cards and just encounters over with early burst damage and card advantage. Try getting one or two Williams and a System crash asap. The rest is just gravy.

There might be a combo deck replacing Rashard, Ghost and the board control with more Hostiles, Hired Guns and some sort of Blackjack/Ner0 + 9th Circle finish but I prefer being able to beat the opponent to death even without drawing the deck. Overall nice experience with neat core mechanics, some woefully undercosted effects and adequate writing (albeit the number of security details, hired assassins and ambushes the main character just plows the fuck through is well beyond the ridiculus). Bonus points for making me realize I'd need a spreadsheet to keep up with the twists, minus for the stupid amount of mandatory trash encounters. Would pay money for an expansion upping the card total to something one could build properly with, game probably wants a multiplayer mode but can't see it being fun with the current cardpool sadly.