By Terris Harned (NWOrpheus)

Famed purveyors of fine video games, CD Projekt Red announced not too long ago that we might be waiting until 2021 for the much anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 title. Obviously, this is forever from now, and a little bit of me, deep inside, died with the news. Thankfully, however, I won’t have to wait until 2021 (hopefully) for a fix of some good ol’ fashioned cyberpunk gaming. This comes in thanks to Disjunction, by Ape Tribe Games.

Disjunction is a pixel graphics, twin-stick style adventure game, with a delightfully dystopian cyberpunk setting. So far they’ve only got a playable demo with the first two levels, but I absolutely can’t wait to see more of where this game intends to go.

The demo of the game is set in New York City, and some of the surrounding areas, some 30 years or so in the future (2048). It opens with a view of a smoggy evening skyline, or perhaps skyscrapers that pierce the clouds. A news broadcast then begins to set the stage, reporting on an incident between police and a man named Lamar Hubbard, a community leader for a district called Central City. Central City was once Central Park, but now is where the poorest residents of the area live in squalor. The way that you know these facts is by mousing over words with an orange highlight in the newscaster’s dialogue.

I enjoy these little lore tidbits that you can read more about, if you’re inclined, but you can totally get away with skipping them and just getting into the action if that’s more your style.

I feel like this is an exemplary example of the “show don’t tell” style of storytelling. The situation isn’t crammed down your throat, but is more presented delicately on a nice silver platter for your casual and leisurely consumption. I found this to be an enjoyable way to preface the game and bring immersion to the fore, even though the game’s pixel graphics are simplistic, or perhaps minimalist.

At any rate, the news story plays out, and you then find yourself in control of a private investigator named Frank. He answers a call from Lamar Hubbard’s wife, who seems quite familiar with the P.I., and asks him to look into the matter the news story prefaced. Without spoiling the story too much, I’ll just say that Frank ends up in a facility, after a transition sequence that reminds me of faintly the old Shadowrun SNES game, in the best possible way.

If you ever want to start a lively discussion, ask a group of old school gamers which was better, SNES or Genesis Shadowrun.

Once in the clinic, you begin the tutorial, beginning with the controls. For the PC version you move around with WASD, and can look around using the mouse. This includes “pushing” the view to one direction, to see further down hallways or around corners.

I’m told that there will be multiple endings for Disjunction, and the outcomes you get will depend heavily on how you play the game, as well as dialogue options. This comes into immediate effect when you begin play, as there are two play styles readily apparent. You can either try to sneak your way through the clinic, attempting to sneak up behind guards and waylay them with your stun baton, or you can go full murder hobo mode and just blaze through the place with your gun out.

I tend to prefer the stealth game, so I made an effort to stick to the shadows and carefully time my attacks so that I could drag a sleeping figure out of sight before another guard spotted it and came over to investigate. Now, when you’re walking slowly (default hold shift) you’ll actually decrease the “vision cone” of guards. This line of sight based cone shows as yellow on your screen when you’re close enough to a guard to track their movements. If the cone turns red, it usually means that the guards have spotted you, and things are about to go south.

The game is rewarding and challenging, without being frustratingly so. The levels I’ve played so far I feel have a very nice balance.

The stun baton and pistol aren’t the only tools you have at your disposal while sneaking around places that you don’t belong. Each of the game’s three playable characters will have a unique passive ability, as well as three different active abilities. For Frank, the P.I., the passive ability is Deadeye, which is fueled by his cybernetic ocular implants. His eyes can assess the most vulnerable parts of a target, and assist him in doing double damage. You also do double damage on a sneak attack from behind an opponent, which stacks with the Deadeye bonus.

The active abilities Frank possesses are shock bolter, smoke grenade, and first aid kit. The first aid kit, as you might have surmised, can heal you. The shock bolter releases a small electrical charge that disables both organic and inorganic targets for a few seconds, allowing you to get in close for that knockout hit. The smoke grenade will obfuscate the vision of any guards within it, which can buy you a couple seconds to get past a target. It also seems to work pretty nicely when multiple targets are around. First aid kit and smoke grenade each have 2 uses per mission (I think.. Maybe per floor? Not sure.)

I don’t envy the headache you’ll have when you awake. In the meantime, rest well, and dream of large women.

There wasn’t a whole lot of features beyond this in the demo, except that there is a bit of character progression that happens between levels. You’re given a certain number of “Upgrade Kits” throughout play, and can also earn some XP. These are both spent before each mission (except the tutorial) and allow you to fine tune your play style. For example, if you’re a guns blazing sort, an increase in firing speed might make you happy. For me and my stealthy approach I took an upgrade that increased my movement speed while walking.

Really though, I don’t know what other features the game would need. The music is catchy, and even though it runs on a relatively short loop, it doesn’t get inanely tiresome as some games that attempt to emulate the 16-bit era do. The graphics are minimalist, as I said, but not in a bad way. I’ve referred in the past to games that are “all flash, no bang”, and Disjunction absolutely avoids this pitfall.

The story is engaging, and the first two levels of the demo for Disjunction absolutely leave me waiting to see more. I want to see where the story goes, as well as what other playable characters there will be, and the lore and abilities they have. The 3-brother team over at Ape Tribe Games have put something fun together, and hope to release the game on Steam, GoG, and consoles, if they can, by Q4 2019. I suggest you wishlist this one on Steam and keep an eye out for it, especially if you appreciate the cyberpunk genre as much as I do.

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

I’ll never forget the first time I got here.

Today’s piece concerns a question I’ve received a few times: Why do I play RPGs? What made me start playing them, and why do I keep playing them after all these years? This is a really good question, and I figured I would take it up today. I have a lot of acquaintances that either don’t get, or don’t understand why I love RPGs so much, and why I’d rather play games that are 15-25 years old instead of trying the latest, greatest multiplayer shooter/what have you. That’s fine, though! Not everyone has to play the same stuff, but why do I play RPGs? Let’s start with why I started in the first place.

Why I started playing RPGs:

This game was so brutal, but still exciting. Not quite to RPGs yet though…

Back when I first got a Nintendo Entertainment System, RPGs were not popular quite yet. My first games are classics: Mario 1 and 3, Batman, Blaster Master, Ninja Gaiden. None of my friends back then played RPGs at all! I didn’t discover the genre until Nintendo Power when they were giving away copies of Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest) for free. A pair of my friends gave me their copies when I was in the 4th grade because they didn’t care about it. On one hand, it felt like I was being pitied, being given some crap game that nobody wanted. On the other hand, a free game, and one I’ve never played before! I was excited to learn about RPGs, even at that young age. At the time, I received maybe one or two games a year, because that’s how it is when you’re poor. One a year is a blessing. So, I started playing Dragon Warrior, and though the story was pretty simplistic, it offered hours and hours of gameplay. It was like an interactive book – but since the story was thin, I was doing most of the storytelling myself. This was back before the days of widespread internet access, so I really had to explore on my own.

That name just doesn’t feel right…

Every game I owned up until that point was a cut-and-dry side-scroller. You head right until the stage is over. The next RPG I found was thanks to my Uncle, who rented me a SNES, and Final Fantasy 2 (IV). It was at this moment I was hooked forever. Final Fantasy 2 was a love story but also a tragic fantasy tale of loss, regret, redemption and so much more. During that weekend, I felt so damn good because I got to Cagnazzo, but didn’t have time to get beyond him. This was also the game that made me want to talk about video games, so that’s another bonus in the genre’s “Pros” category. When I got to Middle/High School, I found friends that would lend me theirs, so when I couldn’t afford them, I could at least enjoy these stories for myself. That’s the long and short of it: RPGs are books that you get to immerse yourself in, and to some degree shape how the story goes. I already loved “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories, and this was the next natural progression down that road.

What keeps me playing RPGs?

Hurry now, and get the “Onett DLC Pack!”

RPGs are huge time commitments, and my time is at a premium now more than ever. I still to this day love a good story, and whether it’s an action RPG, a turn-based strategy RPG, or a turn-based RPG, they all have deep stories, each with their own hook. Each of these RPGs has something to compel you to move forward, to see what happens next. Many RPGs also have replayability so each playthrough is different. This varies from different party members, different builds for characters, or choices you make that force party members to leave (or even die)! There’s so much to love about RPGs, and even if you aren’t a big reader, more modern RPGs more or less tell you what to do. I still love my old-school games where you just have to know or know to talk to everyone, in order to progress.

Randomizers are love, Randomizers are life.

Plus, there are Randomizers now! The rise of the Randomizer has really been a genre of RPG that I’ve come to love. Randomizers are a style of programming that takes classic RPGs (or even more modern ones like Final Fantasy X and Hollow Knight), and randomizes aspects of them: Item locations, key item spots, treasure chests, even bosses! This takes a game that I love, and gives me an infinite amount of replayability, and can also cut the time invested down by over half. This means I get all of the joy of the game I love, without having to spend 80 hours getting to the good parts. With a good RPG, I don’t have to wait on four or five other people to get online. It’s just me, and a good story. There are so many great ways to approach an RPG now. Hell, I even count Yakuza as an action RPG. Some people prefer RPGs with blank slate characters, that they can project onto, but I’m not really in that camp. I like to get into the personality and backstory of my characters and walk in their shoes. I’ve seen incredible sacrifice, love, and betrayal in these games. I think the game that probably really sank me forever into the grip of RPGs was Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals. I loved the prequel (that came first, funny enough), but the development of Maxim as a character, and the sacrifice he was willing to make got me on board for life. I met most of my best friends, people whom I’ve known for decades thanks to RPGs, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What about you? Why do you play RPGs? If you don’t, what are you looking for that they don’t provide?