InfiniteCorp: Cyberpunk Card Game

Genre: Management Sim

Players: 1

.

Review:

InfiniteCorp is a Management Sim released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2021. While it dubs itself as a “Card Game”, what this game really turns out to be is a series of yes/no questions, with your answers impacting various gauges indicating the various interest groups within your futuristic cyberpunk-themed city. Players must answer these requests in a way that placates all of these interests, not the least of which is the budget, which must meet a certain threshold or you’ll find yourself fired.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to know the full effect of your choices until after you make them. Will changing your security to a new group improve your security rating, or lower it? Will using covert footage of low-level residents for a popular TV show enrage the populace, or please them? It’s hard to make strategic decisions when you can never quite guess what your decisions will actually do.

Then of course there’s the other problem, which is that things get very monotonous and repetitive when you only ever have two choices in any situation (save for rare occasions when you earn a one-time bonus ability). Well, technically there’s a third choice that the game doesn’t openly notify players about – postpone… which just puts aside the question until later.

While this is a simple game with simple controls that fits the Tinder-esque “swipe left/right” style of controls, and is even visually represented this way, InfiniteCorp does not make use of touchscreen controls, which seems like a glaring omission. Not that this game needed this, of course – it’s fine with simply using two buttons, it just seems odd that this game wouldn’t bother to go the extra step further to add that extra level of immersion.

If this game has one saving grace, it’s the presentation, which features some nice 2D artwork of various cyberpunk-themed characters and a fittingly “glitchy” background. These visuals are backed by a quiet, repetitive synthesized soundtrack that’s not especially compelling, but at least does a good job driving home the dark topics this game covers.

However, a good presentation cannot save a game with shallow gameplay that doesn’t even clue players in to the consequences of their actions. InfiniteCorp had some potential as a cyberpunk Management Sim that forced players into difficult ethical choices, but the sad reality is that there’s just not enough substance here to keep things interesting.

tl;dr – InfiniteCorp calls itself a “Card Game”, but it’s really a Management Sim that has players answering a string of yes/no questions and trying to placate various factions. While the presentation here has some charm, the gameplay is shallow and doesn’t give players enough information about the repercussions of their actions. Skip it.

Grade: D+

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