Matthew Baileytoday Jack(.8.) and I are going to be looking at “Cyber Pet Quest” a narrative-driven area cooperative movement campaign game made by “Dead Alive Games” and currently on Kickstarter. please be aware that the version that I got a chance to play and is shown in all of the photographs is a prototype and as such things may change between now and the final product.
The concept of the game is you play as Jane a cybernetic cat who is embarking on a quest to find her owner with the help of other cybernetic pets such as Clay the dog Roman the goose and Freya the raccoon.
The game is surprisingly complex so I’m only going to briefly go over how it works you set up the game with all four pets and this is the same regardless of how many players you are playing at and then set up the “Cyms” for which essentially are the bad guys. you then set up the location board which is made up of several different cards that come in the box and place the animal meeples and the people peoples( that represent the bad guys) in their various locations depending on what is said to you in whatever scenario you are playing.
There is some fun story to read as you go and it’s a fun setting.
Turn order is decided by drawing from the initiative deck and controls Who is going in what order. On your pet’s turn you are going to:
generate energy by gaining your base plus any dice roll (that is required for doing other things), choose what actions you’re going to do (such as move, inspect, interact and heal,) convert leftover energy to luck and use items and/or charms.
On the “Cyms” turn they do a number of activities such as attack, trigger an ability or have a passive ability. What is nice is you can adjust the difficulty of these.
In order to win a chapter you have to get all pets to the end of the chapter and as you play the game and go from one level to another your character can level up, gain items and gain new abilities.
I am not usually a fan of games where you are forced to use all of the characters regardless of how many are playing but here it worked well and Jack and I happily managed 2 characters each. In terms of how the game played, it reminded me quite a lot of “Stuffed Fables” and we enjoyed what we played.
The characters all feel different enough and I enjoyed switching between characters as we went.
I can’t comment too much on the components as this is a prototype but what is hear is nice and the fact this game comes in a very small box is very appealing. If you have played any of the “Tiny Epic” games this would fit right in with that series and even though the box was small it never felt like we were playing a “small box game.”
The rulebook takes a bit of getting your head around but I suspect this will be improved once the game is released. Once you understand how to play however the game is straightforward and the difficulty setting you can change on the fly if you want are a welcome addition. It definitely isn’t easy though and on the harder difficulties I can see this being fiendish
Overall “Cyber Pet Quest” is a fun campaign-style game that could act as a good link from lighter games stepping up to more complex games. I still prefer Coraquest but this has a different feel even though I can see them drawing in a similar audience.
We enjoyed what we played through and if this is something you are interested in I think this could be a good bet for a Kickstarter back plus at $24 for the standard edition it’s pretty good value.
If you are coming to this review at a later date “Dead Alive Games” has said that there will be a Late Pledge available.
Disclaimer: A prototype copy of “Cyber Pet Quest” was provided by “Dead Alive Games” for the purpose of review but my thoughts and opinions are my own.
