Board game review of Cyberion: Runs like clockwork

Last year, HUCH! released the classic Onirim and the new Stellarion in German. German-speaking solo gamers can look forward to all the other games in the Oniverse this year. Unfortunately, Castellion will not be localized yet. I got Cyberion, which was released in English last year, straight away and am now reporting on my impressions of the game almost a year later.

Here at spielpunkt.net we often like to present new releases on time or shortly after their release. But it is also very good to simply let games take effect over a period of months and to review them after the first few games, which you often play in a short space of time. to let something rest.

When you take it out again, you really notice how good and intuitive the rules really are and whether it can captivate you beyond the “appeal of the new”. That’s exactly what I have experienced with Cyberion In the spring it came back to the table after a five-month break and has since become one of my favorite solo games.

Game mechanics in the game about mechanics

After already in Stellarion A game board for one of the expansions was included, there is also Cyberion another one. Here it forms the heart of the engine building mechanics. Otherwise, as is almost always the case in Oniverse, there are many cards, some tokens and instead of one figure, five slightly smaller ones.

The goal is to repair all machines before the time (the robot deck) runs out. The machines are repaired by robots. Thanks to the division of labor and a high degree of specialization, machines can only be repaired by certain combinations of robots. Level two machines are a little more complicated to repair than level one and require more robots.

The robots can be located in three different places. They are mainly located on the platform, which is filled up to five robots for each turn. The "Flash" and the warehouse are empty by default. Cards can be placed there using the effects of the orange (Flash) or blue (warehouse) robots.

If you have the combination of robots required by a machine, you can discard the robots to repair the machine. It doesn't matter which area the robots come from. The repaired machines go onto the experience stack and can be spent from there to move one of the gears one level further on the mainframe board. You have to spend as many repaired machines as the value of the current level of the gear. The further the gear of a color has advanced, the more effective the effects of robots of that color become.

Triggering effects is the third possible action on your turn, alongside repairing machines and upgrading effects. To do this, you simply discard a robot and activate the effect of its color.

Once you have completed all the actions you want to perform in one turn, the cleanup phase begins. The display of machines and the platform is filled up to five cards. The "flash" is emptied.
If you didn't repair a machine in the previous turn and weren't able to discard a fuse token, you lose the game in this phase. You start with one fuse and can get more by upgrading an effect to the highest level.
If you have played through the robot deck a second time and have not repaired all the machines, you also lose.
However, if all machines are repaired, you win the game.

Small, big, multi, sneaky – The expansion

As always in the Oniverse, some small expansions are included in the box.

There is one Babybot per color. This expansion adds the "Intervention" action. If you discard two robots of the same color, the total of which is exactly five, you shuffle the Babybot of that color and both robots back into the deck. If you draw a Babybot, you can move the gear of the corresponding color one step further.

The "intervention" with the Gigantobots works a little differently. Here you can take two robots that have the same feature (color or value) and place them on the Gigantobots. There is exactly one Gigantobot for each color and each value. If there are five or six cards on a Gigantobot, it can go on vacation. The robots from this Gigantobot are shuffled back into the robot deck.

Multibots are "half" jokers. If you use them to repair, you can freely choose the color or value (depending on the multibot). Since this would make the game a little easier, there are now also level three machines.

The "Sneaky Gears" expansion adds interference to the mainframe board. There are two interference tokens under each gear at the beginning. If there are still hidden interferences under a gear, you must resolve the effect of this token instead of the effect of the discarded color.

Information about Cyberion

Conclusion

In the Oniverse there are things that you are guaranteed to get in every game. These include the artwork, which I particularly like in the Babybots, simple rules that allow you to get started quickly, and a lot of variability thanks to various small expansions.

In addition to the artwork, the material is in Cyberion also great and I can't think of anything I would do differently. The rules are also written clearly and concisely. With the effect and move overviews at the back of the rule book, you can get through the first game quickly.

Game mechanics are Cyberion for me the most exciting representative of the Oniverse. The slow upgrading of the effects brings an additional level to the game that has not been represented before. You will never be able to fully upgrade all effects and the question of when to upgrade which effect is different in every game, so the combinations are always different.

Of course, it always takes a bit of luck to draw the right robots at the right time. In comparison to, for example, Onirim or castellion But you are not so dependent on it here, as you can counteract it very well with the effects. If you keep an overview of the robots that have already been dropped, it is easier to decide which robots to drop or which machine to repair if several options are possible.

Compared to the predecessor Stellarion is Cyberion The rules are more compact. The effects of the individual robots are easy to carry out and internalize. The small icons for the individual colors were chosen very well. Even with the expansions, nothing "disturbing" is added. They all integrate seamlessly into the basic game. In the long term, they ensure that the game does not become boring. I particularly like the multibots in the expansions.

Cyberion is simply a completely well-rounded thing for me. The essence of the Oniverse is preserved and new aspects are added that make the game completely unique. It just runs smoothly, like a well-oiled machine.