Neodreams

• Designer: Ivan Lashin
• Publisher: Hobby World
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 12+
• Time: 30-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In the near future, an astonishing new technology has been developed that allows the sleeping mind and machine to be connected. It is called Oneiroshunt, and with it, the business of crafting and selling dreams has become a thriving industry. For the right price, clients can learn new skills, overcome deep-seated fears, and travel to the most extraordinary locations all from the comfort of their beds.

In Neodreams, each player is the CEO of a company that is developing and using this technology, and they must expand fast to keep up with the competition. In this economic strategy game, players will deploy their Oneironauts to gather resources, craft stunning experiences, improve dreamscapes, and gain clients. The player who accumulates the most wealth once enough dreams have been created will dominate the Oneiroshunt industry for years to come!

To set up, place the main board on the table with the side chosen for the correct player count. The Cycle marker is placed in the left most space on the Sleep track at the top.  The 3 Dream card decks are shuffled and two cards from each is placed face up next to their respective deck to form a market.

Each player gets their own Mainframe board and places a random Dream board to the right of it.  There are two Dream cards printed on this board.  The Players should decide if they will use the identical Side A of the Dream boards or the asymmetric Side B’s.  One of each of three resource markers are placed at the 3 space on the left hand side of the Mainframe board. Each player gets a starting hand of 1 of each type of card (Lucid, Neodream, Recursive). Players also get 3 object tokens to start the game as well as three Oneironauts (workers) in their color.

The game will be played in rounds until at least one player has 12 or more cards in their area at the end of a round.  On a turn, the active player: 1] deploys a worker or cycles sleep, 2] refills the market, 3] check to see the the endgame is triggered.

If you choose to deploy a worker, it is taken from their supply and placed on an empty location on the board and then take the actions shown at that location. A player can choose to do the actions in any order or choose not to do an action. Possible actions include: gaining Resources (moving the appropriate markers on the track), drawing a Dream card into their hand, creating a Dream card by spending resources, gaining or placing object tokens, placing a Client token onto a played Dream card in order to use the effect on that card, or broadcast Neodreams (activating all previously played Neodreams in your area). 

If you choose to cycle sleep (or if you have no workers left – and then you must cycle sleep), you move the Sleep marker one space to the right, wrapping back to the start if the marker is already at the right end.  All workers in the new chosen column of the Sleep Cycle are returned to their owners, but each also gets a benefit as shown at the right end of their row on the board. Additionally, at any point in this phase, the active player also can take the actions shown on the actual space of the Sleep Cycle marker. 

Also, at any point in this first phase, a player can discard a Dream card from their hand to gain the discard benefit as shown in the upper right corner – generally resources or object tokens.

Then, after the action/sleep cycle has been completed, the market is refreshed so that each of the three types of cards has 2 face up cards next to it.  Finally, check to see if the game end is triggered – which happens when the player has twelve or more cards in their area (and this includes the two printed cards on their dream board).  If so, play to the end of the current round.

At the end of the game, players calculate their final score:

• Each created Dream card has a VP value shown in the top middle
• Each Object token placed is worth 1 VP
• All remaining unplaced objects, cards, resources are summed, and 1 VP per 5 things.

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player who has played more Object tokens.

My thoughts on the game

This game has a very futuristic feel to it – very Blade Runner-esque – and a fascinating/fantastical backstory as well.  We are placing workers (yeah, I have no idea how to pronounce Oneironauts) to create dreams for sale…  Cool, so let’s collect cards with actions on them and score the most victory points. :)

The main conceit here comes in the timing of putting your workers on the board and when they come off.  The Returnal actions (when your worker comes back to you from the board) are important because this is the most common way to get an action to allow you play a card to your area.  If your worker is late in the cycle, it spends more time sitting on the board and you lose the tempo game to other players who are able to place and retrieve their workers faster than you.   The endgame comes when someone is able to play ten cards to their starting board (as two cards are built into the setup); and each card has a VP value – so you definitely don’t want to fall too far behind in this race.

That being said, you need to concern yourself with more than just being able to play a card.  You will definitely want to think about which dream cards you are playing.  Some folks like to go with a heavy Neodream strategy, getting to reap benefits from their cards each time they hit a replay Neodreams action.  Others will look for Lucid Dream cards that work together synergistically to provide extra resources or cards to be used.  The Recursive cards can only be used one time before needing to be reset; but their actions tend to be quite powerful, and if you can set up a rhythm where you get to use them and reset them quickly – you can definitely get a leg up on your opponents. There are plenty of different possibilities, and a lot will depend on what cards you end up getting into your hand.  Though it doesn’t necessarily feel like an engine builder – there are clearly some elements going on here as you pursue different strategies.

The artwork and overall art theme is really eyecatching.  As I mentioned earlier, everything is sleekly futuristic, and I really love the way it looks on the table.  Though each client token is functionally the same as is every Object token; the art on each is quite detailed, and you can certainly use the art of each to tell the story of the dream you are creating.  Or… if you’re unimaginative like me, you can just flip them over to the icon side.  But, it certainly looks beautiful to have the varied illustrations covering the beautiful cards. 

This is my second Lashin game to learn this month (the other being Furnace) and I’m definitely impressed with the scope of his designs.  The games have nice tight interweaved mechanisms, and it is not entirely clear at the start of either game of an obvious path to victory.  You’ll have to take what the cards in the game give you and shape your plan accordingly – and this is certainly my type of game.  I’ll definitely be exploring both more in the winter months this year.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…