HeistGeist Review
Here’s My Card
The world has not been short on deckbuilders in the past few years, which can make it hard for individual titles to really stand out. Slovakian developer Doublequote Studio has aimed to bring its title HeistGeist into the spotlight through a focus on narrative heists in its cyberpunk future setting. While its individual constituent elements may not be particularly original, the tight execution and low-key effective presentation make the game a pleasant surprise.
HeistGeist is set in a 2040s cyberpunk version of central Europe, in the fictional metropolis of Istrocity. It follows Alexandra Nováková, a thief who is on the run after the potential job of a lifetime, stealing a special prototype in Venice, goes horribly wrong. However, the unhappy client soon catches up to her, giving her thirty days to recover the prototype or else. With it clear that she will be hunted wherever she goes, Alex gets in touch with her previous fixer to do what she can to get out of the mess.
The game takes players through eight different heists as Alex tries to hunt down the prototype, which fortunately seems to have ended up nearby in Istrocity. Each heist generally lasts one to two hours as Alex encounters a mixture of events, battles, and hacking sequences while accomplishing her objective before getting out safely. After a couple of solo endeavours, Alex is able to recruit a few allies for some more elaborate heists, where they are needed to unblock each other’s progress. The heists all follow a linear direction and there are no choices that affect the outcomes, but players are given opportunities to take slightly different paths or obtain assets that can make things easier or more challenging. There is a danger level associated with each heist, which increases after combat or certain other choices, but it’s very easy to get through the game without filling it all the way.
Heists are largely linear, though players can choose between a couple of different paths at certain points.
HeistGeist’s presentation is fully 2D; minus a few splash screens or brief animation, event scenes simply involve character portraits talking to each other. Nonetheless, the character art is nice and distinctive, and works well with the background art. The game’s visualisations of the heists also don’t try to do too much, giving players a schematic map to advance through, while the 2D combat UI is effective at providing the information players need while retaining the same consistent look as the rest of the game. All of the events are fully voiced with a strong English cast that commits to the accents, although the actors are never asked to do too much, while the music works well at providing an extra bit of tension without really standing out.
The overall plot and moment-to-moment writing do a fine job sucking players into the narrative. The cast is small but immensely likable, and it’s incredibly easy to root for Alex and her allies as they open up and try to make the best of their situations. The heist sequences are all well put together; the descriptions and dialogue are effective at exhibiting each job’s particular ins and outs, what the characters encounter during each one, and putting forward everyone’s motivations. It’s also fun to see the official news report after each heist contrasting with what actually happened. While the conclusion may leave some major questions and threads open, it’s a decent place to leave things for now with the possibility of Alex and company returning in future.
Combat is all about putting together combos to fully utilise each card.
HeistGeist’s card-based combat sees the player taking on up to three enemies at once. Each turn, the player begins with three action points and a hand of cards. Each card costs between zero and three action points to play. Used cards are sent to the garbage pile, which is reshuffled into the deck once that runs out. Cards are assigned one of three categories — A, B, or C — with almost every card having a bonus effect after one of another category, quite often adding an action point or drawing an extra card. Thanks to these combos, it’s possible to play over ten cards in a single turn, and it’s very satisfying to be able to pull off extended combos in this manner.
Enemies are thankfully a bit more restricted in how many actions they can take, although one particular fight is notably much more challenging than anything else in the game thanks to its combination of moves and ability to inflict the “injury” status, which fills a slot in the player’s hand with an unremovable useless card. Both players and enemies have HP and shield meters, both of which have ways of being restored by actions. There are also a number of status effects, which generally last a single turn, such as haste granting extra action points for the next turn or bleed reducing HP for every action taken on that turn.
Hacking comes with its own separate system, which has its own deckbuilding elements but acts more like a puzzle. Players are given a number of turns to break through a series of nodes. Each turn they can deploy as many cards as possible, trying to reach the objective nodes, sometimes with a couple of optional extra endpoints available that can grant new hacking cards, unlocking easier routes, or other bonuses. Failing a hack increases the danger level, but players can simply jack out and retry should they realise they aren’t going to succeed. It works well at mixing things up with the combat and adding something different to the cycle.
The cast is small, but there’s a lot to like about all of them.
There is no experience system in HeistGeist. Character improvements are done entirely through deckbuilding or purchasing a small collection of passive mods that can be equipped before each heist. New cards are obtained by defeating enemies, events, or purchased between heists. In addition, after using each card enough times, players are given the opportunity to upgrade all copies of it in one of two ways, and can revert it if desired. There’s not a huge amount of variety available in how players can build up the deck; most of the same base cards and the same combo system will be used, but the modifications and more advanced cards give players opportunities to create different synergies.
HeistGeist is deserving of more attention. Those looking for an engaging title to get sucked into for a dozen or so hours will do very well to check it out. It’s not a particularly deep title; a lot of the choices feel like they have very little impact and there’s not a huge amount of ways for players to properly customise their deck, but there’s also a powerful argument that increasing the scope could very easily have caused more problems than benefits and diluted where the game does stand out. However, the tight implementation and focus on the narrative works in HeistGeist’s favour, and its storytelling and gameplay do more than enough to make me interested should Alex ever return for more.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
Tight execution and presentation
Engaging hacking puzzles
Lacking challenge options / replay value
Choices feel largely superficial
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