Cyber Pet Quest

^{review by Luka}

What is Cyber Pet Quest?

Cyber Pet Quest is a 1-4 player multi-chapter campaign game set in an intra-apocalyptic setting where many cybernetically enhanced humans are afflicted by a virus, causing them to act erratically and violently; these infected are called CyMS (Cyber-Memetic Sociopaths). In this dark time, the player characters, Jane the cat, Clay the dog, Freya the raccoon, and Roman the Canada goose, start an adventure to find Jane’s owner and the cybernetic surgeon, Howard! Using their diverse skills, any items they can find, and their newly found cybernetic intelligence, they journey across the fictional city of San Lazaro to avoid and combat CyMS in the way of their goal!

Game Setup

To set up a play session, each player gets one or more pet boards, cards, and pet tag sneak tokens—the four pets are always used no matter how many players are involved.

A difficulty is selected and the current campaign chapter is referenced to set up the proper location cards, tokens, and CyMS cards. The item deck and the initiative decks for the pets and the CyMS are placed nearby for all players.

Gameplay Overview

Each mission in Cyber Pet Quest demands different conditions for success or failure. To accomplish these goals, players take turns, alternating with the CyMS’ turns, over the course of several rounds. Once everyone has gone, a new round starts. The current turn is determined randomly by the initiative decks.

The core of the gameplay revolves around players using energy to perform actions during their turns. Pets generate energy on their turn equal to the number displayed on their pet card plus the energy symbols rolled via the energy dice. The actions pets can take include moving through the spaces on the location card, inspecting and interacting with different objectives, healing, and dealing impact damage to CyMS.

Since each pet is very different from one another, each one has their own actions they’re more efficient at performing. In addition, the pets also have their own starting health values and unique powers that highlight their teamplaying strengths. For example, Jane, the cat, is much more efficient with movement and has the ability to donate energy for other pets to use on their turn, making Jane a mobile support character that can run circles around CyMS while ensuring pets who are critical to players’ plans get enough energy to act. Clay, the dog, on the other hand has more health, can do higher amounts of damage than the other pets, move CyMS and pets around, and he can heal more efficiently too. This makes Clay the premier brawler, as he can dish out as much as he can take.

A CyMS’s turn works differently than a player’s. Depending on their abilities and the selected game difficulty, a CyMS will move a certain amount of spaces towards the pet that has aggro and will attack all pets they come across. A pet can choose to gain aggro at the start of their turn. If they do so, they will take more damage from CyMS, but they will be able to perform most of their actions at full efficiency and can impact CyMS. Alternatively a pet can sneak, in which they become more defensive, taking more energy to perform actions other than the heal action, which becomes more efficient, and being better at dodging damage.

Each CyMS has their own unique abilities that add to the challenge of positioning the pets and choosing when to take aggro. Furthermore, some chapters introduce bosses or mini-bosses that feature even more unique abilities and challenges.

As the game progresses, pets will level up, unlock new abilities, and utilize different charms and items. Charms are unique abilities on cards that utilize luck to perform their function, much like how energy is used to perform actions. Luck is generated via the energy dice at the start of a pet’s turn. Energy is also converted to luck at the end of a pet’s turn in a 1 to 1 conversion rate.

Items, conversely, are free, one time use effects that can be traded between pets to ensure they are used by the pet that can use them most effectively. Charms, luck, and unused items remain with pets between turns and chapters.

Thoughts

I love Cyber Pet Quest for its approachable gameplay that still offers strategic depth. The action system using energy makes it very easy to chunk information and plan out your turns. Yet there’s enough uncertainty with the energy dice, the order of the initiative decks, and the random types of CyMS that the game cannot be “solved.” Additionally, the threat of damage the CyMS provide adds a lot of tension and excitement in anticipation of their turns. All of these aspects make it really satisfying when a plan comes together. And if players are struggling, there’s always the option to decrease the difficulty, or conversely increase it if looking for more of a challenge.

The game is also very replayable as chapters will play out differently each time due to the random and uncertain elements, and there are also choices to experience different missions in different playthroughs. Plus with the difficulty settings, there’s always the option to increase difficulty once you’re experienced.

The game is also really easy to store between play sessions. All game components fit in a 7”x5”x2.5” box, therefore not taking much space when packed. Additionally, there are small envelopes to keep track of various charms, items, upgrades, and other information a pet has acquired throughout the chapters so far. This makes setting up again quick and easy for each pet.

The game components are also very nice to handle; all the cards have a linen finish to them and the pet boards with the sunken slots are effective at tracking energy, luck, and health through acrylic cubes that are satisfying to pick up and look at.

Art on all the cards also makes cards more memorable which helps with remembering their effects while also contributing to world building. I think it’s going to be hard for me to forget the Chef and McFly CyMS, both visually and in gameplay!

Cyber Pet Quest succeeds at being both a very approachable and tactical cooperative campaign game. I’d recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a tactical solo experience, or to families or friends that are looking for a shared adventure when they get together. I’d especially recommend this game if you are newer to playing board games in general as this game serves as a good stepping stone to play more complex games, while still standing on its own effectively, offering a challenging and varied experience the more you play it.

Cyber Pet Quest Deluxe Edition is available now from our webstore.