Human augmentation, neon cityscapes, and corporate overlords. Everyone enjoys a little cyberpunk – and gamers are no exception. Cyberpunk is a sci-fi subgenre that’s filled with neon light and rain-slick streets set on a near-future urban nightmare where low-rent characters twist technology to their own ends and fight to find space for themselves in the shadow of their harsh world. Let’s see if Neon District will make the best use of this distinct brand of futuristic dystopia.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Neon District is a role-playing game (RPG) built on the Polygon blockchain by Blockade Games and is backed by blockchain venture capitalists like BlockTower and Chain Reaction. Blockades’s valuation was $23 million and the developers raised over $5 million as well. Currently, Neon District is playable on browser, and it's set in a futuristic, dystopian world which was fully released last July 1, 2021. Meanwhile, the P2E feature was only enabled last January, 2022.

GAMEPLAY SUMMARY

The basic premise of Neon District is that you must successfully deliver pizzas to win and upgrade your characters. You can either be a law-abiding citizen or play the bad guy and steal other's Neon, the in-game currency earned from delivering Pizza. To get started, you need to build a team of four characters. Characters have 6 types which specialize in various abilities:

• Demons: Speed and agility in combat.
• Docs: The primary healers.
• Geniuses: Intelligence and problem-solving abilities.
• Ghosts: Assassins that have infiltration capabilities.
• Heavies: These are extremely strong.
•  Jacks: Hacking abilities.

While your team is fulfilling pizza orders, you may have to fight other players. Turn-based PVP battles form the core gameplay element in Neon District. In these battles, each character takes turns using their special skills, shown as action cards to take down the opponent. Each character starts with a 10-card deck that can be any of the four card types: 

• Attack: Provide alternate attacks beside the basic attack button.
• Ability: Can either buff or debuff character stats such as shields or poison.
• Effect: Much like Ability but these are automatically played once drawn to your deck. 
• Interact: Functions like Attack cards but for a special kind of unit in battle called Environmental Objects which will be introduced later. 

EARNING POTENTIAL            

The earning methods in Neon District is either by delivering pizzas to gain Neons or ambush other players to steal theirs. Other than that, players can just sell their in-game assets. Such assets include armors, gears, and shells. Armors and gears are needed for defensive and offensive combat respectively. Meanwhile, shells are skins that boost a character's stats. These in-game assets are upgradable to increase their value on the OpenSea or Arkane Market.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

The visuals of Neon District looks stunning since it is presented with a dark post-apocalyptic world full of violent robots and urban fighters. Different from the usual cute graphics of popular P2E games like Axie Infinity and Chibi Fighters. Nevertheless, it has a clean look and the earning methods are quite simple, making it accessible to both experienced players and newbies alike.

According to the story of Neon District, a golden age of free trade was ushered in at some point in the past but governments lashed out and tried to destroy this new culture of freedom. Many people chose to follow but some persisted in resisting. From this interesting background comes the mission of pizza delivery which I think is really out of place. Who would want to deliver pizza in a dystopian world? Well, certainly not me.

For some, this cyberpunk themed pizza delivery game is an ambitious departure from what players were used to. But for me, it represented a misguided attempt at shock value or even a cynical effort to pad the game out. How off-putting is it when a cyberpunk RPG throws in pizza delivery? This element just feels so out of place that I cannot fathom why it is put in the game in the first place. Yes, I love pizza but not in this one.

Anyway, the game promised that there’s more to come in Neon District from crazy characters to engaging storylines. I just hope that this will add further value in the end. But for now, I might have to look for another game that will offer more than just a game of cyberpunk themed DoorDash on a blockchain to wrap my head into.