Neuroscape, After Action Report and Review

So, how much time do you have to devote to entertainment?  Seriously, sit with that question for a moment. What if I told you there was a competitive card game with minimal setup, engaging gameplay, interesting tactical decisions, card synergies, and you could get a game done in 10 minutes, 25 if you are learning the game?

It exists. I’ve played it. It’s good. It is called Neuroscape and it is a cyberpunk themed trading card game where decks revolve around card synergies, but do not limit you with arbitrary blockers like color requirements or class restrictions for deck design. This means you can use pretty much any card in your collection to make a deck. The reason why is that every card is fueled by RAM, which is a resource you can accumulate and, in some cases, must devote continually to certain cards in order to play them.

Let’s get into the two games I played with the intro decks at my Friendly Local Game Store, Brookhurst Hobbies, with the excellent advocate for Neuroscape, Leo.

I was playing the Hackers deck (control) while my opponent was playing Cybernetic deck focused on cyberpsychosis (very aggressive). More on that last word later.

In Neuroscape gameplay there are two unique elements of the system that are immediately apparent.  The first is that there are two forms of life points: 20 Mainframe Health and 20 Bioframe Health.  These represent the health of your neural computer or physical body, respectively. If either of these health pools reach zero, you have lost the game.

The Hackers deck I was playing focused on doing Mainframe damage, while my opponent’s deck was pure Bioframe damage execution.  To distinguish them in game, I just thought of them as “digital damage” and “meat damage.”

The other unique element of Neuroscape gameplay is the use of the Mainframe card.  Your Mainframe card is sort of your neural computer and the center of your deck. You only get to use one Mainframe card in a deck.  I mentioned that Neuroscape is foundationally built on card synergies.  Your Mainframe card gives your deck potentially two synergies.  For example, with the Mainframe card Synthetix if you have two Cybernetic Characters, all Characters you control get +1/+1 for each cyberware attached to them. That is the first synergy.  You don’t have to commit any RAM for that particular ability; it just happens.

So, the Mainframe cards function as a force multiplier and increase the pace of the game.  This adds to the tension of play and makes every decision count, because you are not spending a lot of your time slowly building up your forces to eventually make a strike. 

Speaking of strikes, when you put a Character card into play from your hand you may use it immediately to attack or carry out an action if you have the RAM to run to do so.  “Running RAM” is basically the equivalent of tapping lands (in this case RAM) in that venerable five color fantasy card game that we all know and love.      

To add to the pacing discussion, every turn (with the exception of the first turn of the player that goes first) each player may decide to draw 2 RAM cards, 2 cards from their deck, or one RAM card and one card from their deck.  Again, this accelerates the speed of gameplay as a player almost always has a card they can play from their hand or the resources to do so.     

So how did it play?

To summarize, the gameplay was fast, brutal and tactical.  Since I was playing the Hackers control deck, my strategy was to load up my opponent’s Mainframe card with Viruses or Trojan programs.  My Characters on the field had utility abilities, were sometimes offensive like the awesome Digital Spectre that could be unblockable and dealt more damage to a player if it successfully attacked, or were speedbumps to prevent the opponent’s Characters from damaging me.

This begs the question however, what are Trojans and Viruses and how do they play?  Trojans and Viruses are essentially “enchantments” that occupy a slot next to or above the opponent’s Mainframe.  Not only does this take away a Mainframe slot from the opponent, they also function as Trap cards in Yu-Gi-Oh.  Virus cards are played face up, but Trojans are played face down so there is an element of bluffing and known unknowns with Trojans.

Specifically, in my Hackers control deck, the Trojans I deployed were cards that could damage my opponent in digital damage for each attacker he declared or annihilate all of his attackers outright.  However, victory was not certain, because my opponent had counters, including a card that could destroy one of my Trojans/Viruses for a certain amount of RAM.

In my first game that is exactly what happened.  I heavily invested in Trojans that would damage my opponent when they attacked and then committed the remainder of my RAM to deploying Characters that would block the opposing attackers. 

Now my opponent had an aggressive Cybernetics focused deck.  He could summon strong Cybernetics Characters that would attack me for meat damage exclusively, had equipment to buff their damage, and had cards that make the Cybernetic Characters even stronger…if he took a chance with Cyberpsychosis. Cyberpsychosis is a risk/reward mechanic. If your attacking Character has a Cyberpsychosis rating, then when attacking there is a chance that your attack fails and you hit yourself instead for your Character’s damage value. To determine if your Character fails an attack and hits you instead, you would have to roll lower than the Cyberpsychosis rating on a d20.  Roll higher than your Cyberpsychosis rating and you successfully attack with your cybered up Cyberpsychosis Character.

The d20 is provided with a basic deck as a marker for Mainframe and Bioframe hit points. It is a really nice die; sharper edged than the plastic ones you normally get from a game store and delightfully denser than normal.

Back to the game. My opponent’s primary Cybernetic Character had a Cyberpsychosis rating of 10. He rolled above 10 several times, crushing the blocking Characters I threw in his way and eventually punching me in the face for 9 damage per attack, ending my existence.  It was an excellent fast match. 

In the second game, I found my footing. The game evolved similarly to the previous one, in that my opponent was building up Cybernetic Characters with Cyberpsychosis, but this time I focused equally on my Characters and Trojans. I played the Singularity Character, which destroyed all of my RAM, but allowed me to play two cards of any value from my hand per turn. I began loading up Trojans on my opponent’s Mainframe again, zapped him a couple times with a Digital Spectre and was hit once in meatspace for damage that brought me down to two Bioframe hit points.  In my opponent’s next turn, he was down to three Mainframe hit points and proceeded to attack me again. However, I revealed that I placed a Trojan that would deal three digital damage to him when he committed an attacker.  That Trojan fired before the Cyberpsycho’s attack could complete, and I won the second game.

First Impressions

Overall, playing the introductory Hackers deck designed for control, gave me a refreshing memory of playing Blue control decks early on in the Revised set for Magic: the Gathering.  More importantly, the experience of playing the game was fun. I can’t stop thinking about it a day later and I want to buy my own cards and play again.  The only thing stopping me is that … well Neuroscape is all sold out where I am, so I have to wait until next week!

In other thoughts, the artwork on the cards is gorgeous. I’ve noticed the occasional nod to foundational cyberpunk media like the Matrix, Edgerunners, and real-world penetration testing techniques.   I’ve mentioned the twenty-sided dice you get in the core sets before, but their quality bears mentioning again.  Everything I saw of Neuroscape’s presentation struck me as designed towards quality.  I’m looking forward to buying my decks. 

I was also impressed by the design of asymmetric themes. Control vs Aggressive were both on display in the introductory decks.  If I had the cards from both decks, I could incorporate both themes into my deck. Choosing the right Mainframe would just help my synergy and focus my play style.

I am also happy with the light bluffing aspect that slotting Trojans (facedown) onto a Mainframe creates. This forces the opponent to deal with a few questions. Which Trojans are you going to destroy, opponent? Are you going to devote your precious RAM to cleaning your Mainframe or use the RAM for something else more aggressive this turn?

On point for a cyberpunk themed tcg, Neuroscape has an app for iOS and Android.  They include access to a Lifepoint counter for both Mainframe and Bioframe  points, the free Rulebook pdf, Learn to Play resources like a Quick Start and Tutorial video, and social media links.

In this writeup, I may have made some mistakes with the specific terminology of Neuroscape’s rules or the mechanics, but I hope my enthusiasm for the game and its exciting designs are clear.

Outstanding Questions

Granted I’m excited, but I did only play two games of Neuroscape with introductory decks. Further questions need to be addressed. What about deck building? How does that feel? What about the mechanics of Instability when you have less RAM than you require for the Characters you have on the field?  That’s a mechanic we didn’t even get into in the example of play.  What about the Dustrunner cards that eat opponent’s RAM? How does that work?

I can only address the question about deck building now because I was able to talk with Leo who has been building decks as soon as he got the cards.  I think you can include any of the cards in the set in your deck (remember, just one Mainframe though).  However, your deck won’t be optimized unless you start building around card synergies.  The Mainframe you choose offers some synergies, but other cards offer opportunities as well.  And then some cards break the system.  Remember The Singularity that I played in my second game? If I relied on synergies with The Singularity then I would lean towards stacking my deck with high RAM cost cards, because The Singularity would allow me to deploy two cards of any RAM cost per turn.

In closing, I had a lot of fun playing Neuroscape. Frankly more fun than I have playing tcgs in years.  It is designed to be fast, brutal and have your decisions matter.  There are still some questions I have in terms of the design space of making decks, but I’ll explore that when I get my cards and start dreaming up my own combinations.

Neuroscape. It got it’s hooks into me.