First and foremost, Hard Wired Island is a game that is not only unafraid but eager to engage with the questions of society and abusive capitalism that are core to cyberpunk as a genre. From the excellent and evocative art that plays on the attempts of corporate social media to advertise via lip service to advocacy, to forthright commentary on the gig economy via such twists as Headpattr, the on-demand cat maid service, HWI absolutely wears its politics on its sleeve.
My favorite part of the design is that the focus is on characters living in a cyberpunk and transhumanist world and navigating the social and economic struggles required. This game is not the rainy nights and neon, leather and gear porn sort of cyperpunk-as-aesthetic game most common for the genre. While fighting is an option, the system shines when navigating social scenes, with robust and well-explained mechanics for keeping things moving and accomplishing your character's goals by means other than bullets.
In play, things run extremely smoothly. The book gives in-depth play examples for its mechanics, and includes useful sidebars to help new GMs and players understand how best to improvise when something not covered by the stated system comes up. The character generation system is very broad, including open-ended specialization as well as a variety of character traits and the design philosophy for creating new traits that suit other character concepts.
I would be absolutely underselling it if I left out an additional point that I adore; the sheer diversity of the characters represented as examples, and the inclusivity written into the rules and setting. This is a game that is comfortable with characters of all sorts, with any variety of ethnicity, gender presentation, or orientation that a player would like. This is not just lip service, as the writing is welcoming and the in-game examples presented reflect that same diversity in all its glory.
Plus, where else are you going to get a game that has a table of random android characters for inspiration that includes a rapping idol so hot she allegedly had to add heat fins?
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |