Britain. 2099. Organized crime is running rampant, but police are trying to keep the heat on as best they can. The Nightlancers don’t want to be in control … but they also don’t want to be controlled – they just want to get their money and get out, before society crumbles before them and takes them out too.

Do you have what it takes to take on missions, improve your abilities, and make it out alive? Only the best Nightlancer can prove victorious. Will it be you? I guess we’ll see …

What Is It?

Primarily a stat / hand management game. Players will be tackling various events and missions, which will consider their stats (i.e. covert or streetwise) and they will roll dice to increase them a bit. Players will need to buy different equipment and seize opportunities to permanently boost those states as well. There is also a worker placement phase each round that lets players gain more cards, as well as health, resolve, and money. Missions may get players money, points, or ideal, but they need to watch out, because they may also gain heat, which can prove dangerous down the line. Points can also be earned from opportunities, and a few end-game scoring items. At game’s end, all that matters is who earned the most points!

Who Is It For?

  • Ages 14+
  • 1 – 4 Players (I’d recommend 2 – 4 for the most part)
  • Fans of cyberpunk / dystopian future themes
  • Fans of stat and hand management

Variants

Co-op / Solo – You can work together instead of competing, and play against the Agent who is just trying to interfere. Solo mode also has a “decoy” player, again, whose purpose is to take up slots on the board.

For solo, I felt like there was a lot of upkeep for non-player pieces, and for both modes, always having to remember when the Agent could play cards. Other than that, everything is pretty similar to the competitive mode, so it’s easy enough to play either way. I just felt the competitive mode had the smoothest gameplay.

PROS

  • Nice art
  • Managing various stats is neat, and adjusting strategy to compensate when you’re “weak” in an area
  • Multiple paths to victory
  • Theme works well; flavor text is very thematic
  • Ability to team up on missions is cool, can help mitigate or prevent a runaway leader

CONS

  • Most of the text is very small, which made is difficult to read; there are also a lot of symbols (for stats) which are also very small on the mission cards, so it’s hard to keep track of things at times
  • The “board” is 4 separate pieces, so it often slides around as you put pieces on and off it
  • The rulebook is kind of clunky, I felt like it could have been more streamline, as the game is not overly complex

Final Thoughts

This kind of reminded me of Guild Master but instead of building a team, you’re just trying to improve your own abilities so that you can go on better, more lucrative missions.

I think there’s a lot of balancing for players to do in this game (do I take a loan?, do I buy cards from the black market?, should I put everything into one ability, or spread out? … et cetera) and it works pretty well. I also thought it did feel pretty thematic, which was cool, but I wish all that flavor text was easier to read.

I kind of thought it lasted a little too long for what it did, since every round feels very much the same, but it’s hard to make shorter since it does take time to build up your abilities and weaponry.

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10
Designer – Joseph Norris
Artist – Manolis Frangidis
Publisher – Adversity Games
MSRP – £35.00 – Buy
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*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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