Neofeud is a Dystopic Cyberpunk adventure game in the vein of Blade Runner, but with an overlay of Game of Thrones-like political intrigue, and 1366x768, hand-painted, stylized visuals.
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Neofeud is a mostly-solo-project point-and-click cyberpunk anti-capitalist anti-fascist 80s-inspired B-movie hand-drawn fever dream of a game. As ridiculous as Neofeud can be, I had a great time with it. It was made with a lot of heart, and it is entertaining and interesting the whole way through. My only real complaints are the overabundance of in-your-face real world references (e.g., "It's like that creature from 'The Thing'!") and the clunky old adventure game studios controls.
Neofeud is as subtle and tactful as a pissed off hippo in a jewelry store to its both strength and detriment. The game’s allegory for robots/mutants as ethnic minorities, namely, African-Americans, as is utterly inelegant as David Cage’s robots in the back of the bus or Deus Ex’s “Aug Lives Matter”. One of the primary supporting characters is a jive talking gangbanger robot that would make those two racist Transformers from the Michael Bay movies tell him to tone it down. I don’t blame anyone from second guessing this game at first blush, it’s initially seems real ugly and abrasive. But what separates Neofeud from something as utterly po-faced and tone-deaf like Detroit: Become Human and alleviates its flaws it’s that it genuinely gets the genre and the themes it deals with.
Neofeud is probably the most actual cyberpunk game I’ve ever played. It dives harder into the ravages and inequalities of capitalism as well as how all the fancy tech in the world ain’t gonna fix capitalism’s problems or not even make the dystopia look cool than the vast majority of games that dabble in the genre. One great example of this is one of the early puzzles in the game is to DIY fix the protagonist, ex-cop turned social worker Karl Carbon’s, defective old cyborg arm that he can’t afford to upgrade. The dev is a native Hawaiian who worked as a social worker and you can tell straight away he was working from personal experience just with the opening scene at the social services building alone of an android lady pointing how the capitalist system is rigged to make sure the underclass is prevented from getting out of poverty. Even though Karl is an ex-cop, he as a character has an understanding of how fucked his society and is quick to point out injustice. One of the sections of the game has Karl do a CPS check on a robot foster home and you can have him let any infractions slide because he knows that the family is trying their best with the shit situation they’re given. He’s actually a pretty empathetic character when he easily could have been a snarky sociopath.
The puzzles are mostly pretty straightforward and logical, the solutions usually always being in the same room as the puzzle themselves. A good chunk of puzzle-solving is mainly just talking to other characters as well. There are some combat sections that are janky, but they’re few and aren’t too tricky.
The art is also something to get used to, it’s this cobbled together low-budget collage of weird but I honestly think it fits the game well. Really feels like it did what Cruelty Squad was trying to do years later, but better.
Neofeud is messy in a lot ways, in the writing, in the kind of janky gameplay, and in the art; but has a deft grasp of its themes and its understanding of American/capitalist society’s flaws and how completely unafraid it is to call them out in a leftist way. Its heart is fully in the right place and if you can stomach its idiosyncrasies you’re in for one of the most unabashedly anti-capitalist cyberpunk games around. Also the sequel is coming out soon and that looks legit rad. Definitely looking forward to it.
Neofeud is probably the most actual cyberpunk game I’ve ever played. It dives harder into the ravages and inequalities of capitalism as well as how all the fancy tech in the world ain’t gonna fix capitalism’s problems or not even make the dystopia look cool than the vast majority of games that dabble in the genre. One great example of this is one of the early puzzles in the game is to DIY fix the protagonist, ex-cop turned social worker Karl Carbon’s, defective old cyborg arm that he can’t afford to upgrade. The dev is a native Hawaiian who worked as a social worker and you can tell straight away he was working from personal experience just with the opening scene at the social services building alone of an android lady pointing how the capitalist system is rigged to make sure the underclass is prevented from getting out of poverty. Even though Karl is an ex-cop, he as a character has an understanding of how fucked his society and is quick to point out injustice. One of the sections of the game has Karl do a CPS check on a robot foster home and you can have him let any infractions slide because he knows that the family is trying their best with the shit situation they’re given. He’s actually a pretty empathetic character when he easily could have been a snarky sociopath.
The puzzles are mostly pretty straightforward and logical, the solutions usually always being in the same room as the puzzle themselves. A good chunk of puzzle-solving is mainly just talking to other characters as well. There are some combat sections that are janky, but they’re few and aren’t too tricky.
The art is also something to get used to, it’s this cobbled together low-budget collage of weird but I honestly think it fits the game well. Really feels like it did what Cruelty Squad was trying to do years later, but better.
Neofeud is messy in a lot ways, in the writing, in the kind of janky gameplay, and in the art; but has a deft grasp of its themes and its understanding of American/capitalist society’s flaws and how completely unafraid it is to call them out in a leftist way. Its heart is fully in the right place and if you can stomach its idiosyncrasies you’re in for one of the most unabashedly anti-capitalist cyberpunk games around. Also the sequel is coming out soon and that looks legit rad. Definitely looking forward to it.
I can't rate this game because I can't tell you if its good or not. I don't know how to rate this game. I don't know how to define this game.
The cyberpunk mystery centers on Karl Carbon, a gritty ex-cop turned social worker who manages various child protection cases involving robots and hybrid creatures. His first scene involves him smoking an e-cigarette, which immediately informs him he’s “out of smoking credits for the day.” He bitterly remarks "damn social justice AIs."
Fearing the worst from that line, I start to plan to close the game as soon as the cutscene ended. But then the cutscene progresses to Karl's daily work. A robot is in line to receive assistance. She needs support so she can get a job and move into better housing. The clerk informs the robot that she needs to get better housing if she's going to get assistance. The robot complains: this is a catch-22. She can't get assistance until she's already on assistance. A security guard immediately proclaims that he's been approved to use lethal force and pulls out his gun. Karl complains: "its these kind of trigger happy idiots that I had to leave the force to begin with." The puzzle involves using your taser on the security guard and letting the robot escape before she gets killed. The sequence was so intriguing, I decided to stick with the game a little longer.
The game jump between these weird extremes a lot. Karl travels to a robot neighborhood, which is AGGRESSIVELY black coded and full of misused AAVE. At the same time, research informed me that the creator is a Native Hawaiian social worker/STEM robotics teacher. Even if the robot = people of color cliche makes me uncomfortable, I don't think I have the place to comment on it when the creator is distinctly non-white.
In the middle of that, you get a minigame where you complete a CPS checklist. The home you're vising violates every health protocol in the book, but you can tell the family is trying their best to offer their kids the support they can afford. You can choose to look the other way and let them live in peace. There's no reward for this and the game's events make the choice meaningless soon after. It doesn't do it to make the protagonist or the player feel good about themselves. It just offers the possibility and leaves the player to determine their beliefs. Its a genuine sincerity in a game that came off kind of edgelordy at first. Karl has no quips that permeates most of his dialogue. He's quiet, gentle, and doing his job.
Oh, also, the robot father in that scene is a Terminator. Like, traced over art of a Terminator.
The game never stops with strange swerves and decisions. A human-squid hybrid girl reading Das Kapital on a street corner. A (white) socialist princess who's time traveled from the future to prevent feudalism from taking over again. One of the final scenes is a rich woman complaining that she won't be able to afford riding her mutant pegasus if she has to pay taxes. Weird pop culture references, stolen art. LONG monologues about the failures of bureaucracy in social work and how the rich profit from it all. It keeps throwing whatever idea it has right at your face, without stopping to breathe. Its an assault to the senses. It has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. Its art style is aggressively post-modern and absurdist, sometimes to its detriment. I lost track of the factions and manipulations the second time travel entered the equation. I don't know if I could rec it in good conscience. I think I kind of loved it? Its charming, from a distance. There's an infectious glee it takes in its absurdist, slapdash aesthetic. It has strong beliefs about social structures and oppression and that's more than I can say about some other cyberpunk stories I've encountered.
What an experience.
The cyberpunk mystery centers on Karl Carbon, a gritty ex-cop turned social worker who manages various child protection cases involving robots and hybrid creatures. His first scene involves him smoking an e-cigarette, which immediately informs him he’s “out of smoking credits for the day.” He bitterly remarks "damn social justice AIs."
Fearing the worst from that line, I start to plan to close the game as soon as the cutscene ended. But then the cutscene progresses to Karl's daily work. A robot is in line to receive assistance. She needs support so she can get a job and move into better housing. The clerk informs the robot that she needs to get better housing if she's going to get assistance. The robot complains: this is a catch-22. She can't get assistance until she's already on assistance. A security guard immediately proclaims that he's been approved to use lethal force and pulls out his gun. Karl complains: "its these kind of trigger happy idiots that I had to leave the force to begin with." The puzzle involves using your taser on the security guard and letting the robot escape before she gets killed. The sequence was so intriguing, I decided to stick with the game a little longer.
The game jump between these weird extremes a lot. Karl travels to a robot neighborhood, which is AGGRESSIVELY black coded and full of misused AAVE. At the same time, research informed me that the creator is a Native Hawaiian social worker/STEM robotics teacher. Even if the robot = people of color cliche makes me uncomfortable, I don't think I have the place to comment on it when the creator is distinctly non-white.
In the middle of that, you get a minigame where you complete a CPS checklist. The home you're vising violates every health protocol in the book, but you can tell the family is trying their best to offer their kids the support they can afford. You can choose to look the other way and let them live in peace. There's no reward for this and the game's events make the choice meaningless soon after. It doesn't do it to make the protagonist or the player feel good about themselves. It just offers the possibility and leaves the player to determine their beliefs. Its a genuine sincerity in a game that came off kind of edgelordy at first. Karl has no quips that permeates most of his dialogue. He's quiet, gentle, and doing his job.
Oh, also, the robot father in that scene is a Terminator. Like, traced over art of a Terminator.
The game never stops with strange swerves and decisions. A human-squid hybrid girl reading Das Kapital on a street corner. A (white) socialist princess who's time traveled from the future to prevent feudalism from taking over again. One of the final scenes is a rich woman complaining that she won't be able to afford riding her mutant pegasus if she has to pay taxes. Weird pop culture references, stolen art. LONG monologues about the failures of bureaucracy in social work and how the rich profit from it all. It keeps throwing whatever idea it has right at your face, without stopping to breathe. Its an assault to the senses. It has some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. Its art style is aggressively post-modern and absurdist, sometimes to its detriment. I lost track of the factions and manipulations the second time travel entered the equation. I don't know if I could rec it in good conscience. I think I kind of loved it? Its charming, from a distance. There's an infectious glee it takes in its absurdist, slapdash aesthetic. It has strong beliefs about social structures and oppression and that's more than I can say about some other cyberpunk stories I've encountered.
What an experience.
One of the most aggressively honest game narratives I've seen, pulls zero punches.