The year is 2384; mega corporations, government entities, and criminal organizations all fight for power through proxy battles in cyberspace and meat space. Welcome to the world of WinterCypher a cyberpunk influence computer and board game.

In 2102 the world temperature had been rising. The rise of temperature had an effect of starting the new ice age. The resulting rising of sea levels and then freezing of all worlds oceans within 50 years dramatically change the power structure of the world. Corporations and criminal organizations rose to obtain as much power if not more than the world’s governments.

With the ice age an acceleration of technology began. Artificial intelligence gave rise to sentient intelligence. Cybernetics enhanced human awareness to rival sentient intelligence. Advance energy production gave rise to an accelerated space race that led to Earth Station 1 and the colonization of the moon. Magnetic transportation gave rise to super mass transportation between large portions of the planet all centering in Hyper City. Cyberspace became ubiquitous with everything.

But at last we know how it goes. The world always fights for power. Elites within corporations wanted more, governments fought back and as always people suffer the most. The proxy battles brought about the destruction of the Earth Station 1, unknown devastation in the ice fields of the pacific. People rioted and demanded change. The Pacific Authority was created to manage Hyper City and the Federation was design to handle colonial affairs on mars and the new Outputs on the Moon. In other words out with old and in with old.

The truth is, after all this, no one cared. Too busy managing their presence in cyberspace and drinking the latest media drivel. Human race never really changes much in the end.

What was once known as the Pacific Ocean is now called and organized by the Pacific Authority with the capital being Hyper City. Hyper City is the dominant power center of the world now, even though certain other governments and organizations would argue that. Some even dare to ask who the Pacific Authority is when in reality they are just another corporation. Hyper City can get you anything you want or take you anywhere you want; if you have credits and the rep. Hyper City is connected through Hyper Tube (or the potato as the locals call it) transport to many other mega cities such as Vladivostok, Russia; Shanghai, China; Seattle, United States, Lima, Peru, and others. Hyper City started as a floating platform in twenty first century to send rockets to space. This led to Hyper City maintaining an absolute monopoly on all space travel. The monopoly gave rise to many corporations and power dominance.

After the destruction of earth station 1 the Federation was created to protect all human endeavors in space. There is increased resentment growing in the outer colonies though due to the federation’s heavy influence. The Federation denies this.

The mega cities are all about the same, same governments, same corporations, and same problems. Seattle is now the capital of the United States it includes the landmass stretching from Vancouver to Portland, one giant city that never stops. Vladivostok, Shanghai, and Lima have also become major power centers with a total of 8 billion people frequenting those cites every day.

Cyberspace just like meat space has the appearance of being tame but move just past the boundaries and the chaos begins, rouge artificial intelligences, sentient intelligence, and cyber runners all representing corporate interest or personal agendas via for control or chaos. Tools of the trade include viruses and ICE. If you are not equipped with the best cybernetics with latest ICE and infamous viruses you will be dead in Nano seconds or worse.

The question is simple. What will you choose to do?

WinterCypher is cyberpunk influence game with a dynamically changing world based on player actions and non-player character agendas such as other characters and corporations. Players are able to choose at any given time what they want to do. As players explore the world they will be able to interact with many systems through combat, hacking, manipulation, and conversations.

Players have direct influence on the world for example players may decide to hack a corporation to disable internal security and fire the security company to steal information. Or players may go in guns blasting to physically steal the information. Or players may hack the human resources department to become an employee and simply walk in and take the information. Or players can simply become and employee of the corporation and then decide what to do.

All of these actions have direct and indirect consequences. Firing the security company may put the player on a hit list with the company sending security forces to *fix* the player. Or the corporation may crash thus causing all the employees to lose their jobs thus turning the surrounding areas into slums or into criminal havens. Or an even worse corporation may come in and take the place or buy the corporation in a hostile takeover. Or the player may become an elite member of that corporation insuring that corporations interest are well protect and the player’s account lined with money and the best gear then the player could betray and defect to the underground or to another entity. The player is not the only one affecting the world. Corporations, non-player characters and other entities have their own respective agenda to achieve. In the end the player is free to decide what they want to do.

Meat space is the physical world the player inhabits. Players will interact with other characters and many other systems within the world. Players will travel by magnetic transport, Anti-gravity rockets, public transport, and by foot.

The player will explore many mega cites containing many districts including Vladivostok, Seattle, Shanghai, Lima, Hyper City, Ice wastelands of the Pacific Authority, and Earth Station One if the player has the credits or finds another way. Hyper City allows travel to Terran Station in space, which is jumping off point to the outer colonies. Outer colonies include Mars city - first outpost on mars, Crater Town - center of the world on the moon and has the best shopping anywhere for the latest apparel and illegal modifications if you look.

Cyberspace is made up of infinite interconnecting nodes representing ever growing networks. Anything and everything in the physical world is connected as a node to cyberspace: Corporations, government entities, people, pets, vehicles, food, and toasters.

Players can travel freely among the nodes, but some nodes will require hacking nodes. The player will have to combat ICE and defend against virus setup by corporations, rouge artificial intelligence, sentient intelligence, and other characters. Hacking these entities can yield the player, money, street reputation, contracts, new gear, and other not so desirable effects. Players may have to hack certain ICE to obtain access to certain networks. Off grid networks or ultra-secure networks cannot be connected to through normal cyberspace. Players will have to find the physical location to enter the nodes on these networks, hacking in to restricted nodes will get the player noticed instantly.

WinterCypher leverages thousands of statistics to monitor the player’s actions and choices to dynamically alter the world. Every action you take has a consequence positive, negative, neutral, and all three together.

Statistics include Attributes (Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Reaction, Cognition, Intelligence, Logic, Charisma, and more), Skills (Heavy weapons handling, Gymnastics, Extortion, Public speaking, Cyber intrusion, and many more), Status Effects (Nano Norco for the win, Boost your characteristics but man that crash is hard better be somewhere safe), Personality traits, Gear stats, Affiliations, Reputations, and Hidden statistics. Many of these statistics the player can directly modify. Train new skills to increase their ability to use gear. The player can increase attributes through special doctors if they have the right type of Digital coins and Nano Procs. While other statistics are modified through actions such as taking missions, random actions such as killing NPCs, enemies, hacking, and buying/selling items. Reputations and affiliations greatly affect how the world views the player. For example if street reputation is so low, enemies may completely ignore you, attack on site, and grant/deny access to areas.

As the player explores the world they will make someone or something mad. Combat is in real time and driven by the many characteristics of the player and enemies, such as Character attributes, Status effects, Skills and training, Personality traits, and Gear Stats. Players and enemies have access to weapons, gear, deployable cover, and Nano Norco. Players may only equip a certain number of weapons, Nano Norco, and cover items so they must choose how they want to engage combat.

Weapons have a trigger pulling speed and a magazine reload speed (Timer cool downs.) For example one particular weapon has a trigger cool down of 1.5 seconds, magazine reload cooldown of 5 seconds and a magazine size of 10 rounds of ammo. These cool downs may also be influenced by other character stats such as skills. If a player has zero skill in a weapon the cool downs may be higher and may miss the target more often. If players run out of ammo they will fall back to a default energy weapon or better to just run away!

Player may also do special damage if a weapon has the capability including brain and mental damage. Increasing brain damage on the player or enemy will affect all stats and as mental loss increases various stats such as cool downs will change. Players may need to take down enemy defenses first in order to do more damage.

Nano Norco heals health damage, mental fatigue, and more importantly boost stats, but remember drugs are bad they have side effects. Other consumable items include armor repair and cover objects that absorb damage until they are destroyed.

As players explore cyberspace they may be tempted to hack various networks for many reasons, players themselves may be hacked, more over having cyberware equipped can make the player a hacking target in the real world.

Hacking is very similar in operation as real world combat. The difference is in the use of viruses and ICE instead of weapons and Nano Norco When engaging in hacking players will need to understand the types of ICE the enemy is deploying, types of viruses the enemy is using, and types of defenses the enemy is using (similar to real world defenses).

Once an ICE has been identified the player will need to choose the best virus they have equipped to damage the ICE. Players will also need to deploy their own ICE. Exploring a known network without any ICE is dangerous, an unknown network, well that is the player’s choice. Players may have up to three viruses and three ICE equipped at any time, unless other means are found. Cool down timers for ICE and viruses apply, unless the player boosts through other means. Players may also boost themselves with Nano Norco before hacking, but remember drugs do not last forever and have side effects.

Just like real world combat hacking is also optional depending on the skills and choices the player makes or has made for them. It’s up to the player to decide how they want to engage. Take down the system administrator in the real world thus there is no one to protect the network from intrusion, but then again this may make someone mad. Sometimes the best way may be to be completely unnoticed and leave no trace.

WinterCypher the board game allows 1 to 6 players to take on scenarios with multiple objectives that require cunning decisions, real-world combat, and hacking. Players will travel across the city to specific corporations to complete objectives. Along the way players may face combat counters, special situations, and hacking attempts. Players will have to make decisions based on their respective stats and D12 dice roles. Players may increase stats through level gain (such as strength and intelligence) and equipping items (such as attack and defense). Consumable items such as Nano Norco allow players to heal and fix brain damage. WinterCypher will arrive in a base game with future large Corporation expansions and smaller Subsidiary expansions that will tell episodic stories to be release on a schedule.

Game setup will take 5 to 10 mins with an a single game session lasting from 20 mins to 2 hours or longer depending on which scenario/s are selected.

Players will choose a scenario and place the required: world game board, corporations, location game boards, set aside combat board, cover items and other items. Players will then place the player group miniature as instructed by the scenario. Next the Real World Combat Deck, Situational Deck, and Hacking Deck with special cards (Boss, events) will be built. Players will then select their characters unless the scenario calls for specific characters, get starting inventory items, and calculate stats. Stats will only change in during a level increase, new item, or event from scenario with special instructions.

When instructed by dice outcomes or scenario events, players will draw a random combat card or use a specific combat card. Combat is played on a 10 x 10 grid that players are free to navigate. The combat card contains: Enemy type, starting location, placement; Player starting locations; Cover locations and health, and any special instructions. Players and enemies will navigate and engage in combat.

Hacking combat is very similar to real world combat on the same 10 x 10 grid. Players will draw a Hacking event card which provides the following; Initial ICE types, locations, and health; Enemy type, starting location, placement; Player starting locations; and any special instructions. The main difference is the use of ICE and Viruses the players and enemies must deploy and defeat to win. There are various types of ICE and Viruses that have different characteristics and are strong/weak against each other. The players will need to determine and strategize which ICE and Viruses they need to carry for any given scenario.

Scenarios control the story and flow of a game session and dictate what the objectives are and how to complete them. Scenario objectives may include; assassinate a rouge corporate officer or infiltrate a competing corporation and steal information. Scenarios are linked together with decisions and random outcomes affecting the next scenario. Completing objectives will reward quest items, new gear, and level increases.

Scenarios dictate specifically marked areas on the world game board and location boards with events. These events may include dice rolls to see if: combat or situation cards are drawn; or advance dice rolls for specific events and outcomes.

More Coming soon!

More information for a series of alpha tests will be available soon

Demo coming in the Summer of 2019!