I finally got around reading this thick block of propaganda that calls itself a game. Let's take a dive into Hard Wired Island.
Hard Wired Island is a "game" written by Paul "Ettin" Matijevic, RPGNet and SA janitor,
harasser of women and most recently
publicly humiliated by Zak Sabbath.
Let's see the initial pitch.
Because nothing steers the world towards a better future like terrorism.
This is going to be fun. Let's get to some future history.
Back in 1996, a large meteor hit the Earth in the arctic, resulting first in a brief impact winter, followed immediately afterwards by global warming. I'm not exactly sure why or how this happened, but Paul feels the need to make jabs at all the evil climate change deniers.
The funny part is that Paul thinks that this is some kind of giant "I told you so!" about global warming, despite the fact that he not only got the science wrong, but had to rely on an outside event that could not possibly have been caused by humans to speed up the process. But who cares about science, Paul wants to see those evil people get their comeuppance!
In the next few years immediately following the disaster, society quickly turned its focus towards space travel so that humanity wouldn't get wiped out by the next meteor slamming into the Earth. You'd think they would be more concerned about deal with the real fallout from the previous one, but what do I know. Environmental reform and space settlement became the new hotness overnight, and people start launching space missions--including the African Union, which got to the moon in just three years after the apocalypse somehow.
Since everyone and their mother wanted to go into space, because space was where all the cool people were going, the UN decided to set a bunch of rules about space exploration, which also included rules about gender and other diversity gaps in tech fields for some reason.
Yes the world is literally ending but damnit, there are too many introverted white men in tech! Priorities!
The other thing that the UN did was establish the Grand Cross Program, an international city in space capable of sustaining millions of people with minimal assistance, and acting as humanity's gateway to the stars. In other words, Space Portland.
The next few years divert all of the resources that could have been spent saving the billions who were dying from the meteor-induced climate change on Earth to getting the cool people into space. There are lunar colonies by 2005, and Grand Cross is ready in 2010 despite a number of delays, accidents, and financial backers getting cold feet.
By the 2010s, the nations on Earth were recovering from the meteor impact and decided to focus on their own needs rather than keep shoveling money into Space Portland. Corporations begin throwing money around to try and get into the UN-controlled Grand Cross project. The UN committee running the station was eventually replaced by a bunch of corporate stooges called the Offworld Cartel who privatized everything they could in order to make a quick buck.
In 2019, the Cartel's cost-cutting resulted in the destruction of another space habitat, and rather then send the refugees from the station back to Earth, they all went to Grand Cross instead for some reason, and no one seemed interested in spending money to help them out.
As of 2020, the game's start, Space Portland is a place of staggering income inequality, where fancy new tech is used by the rich to control the poor while internet activists throw tantrums. So it's a lot like regular Portland in that regard.
Beyond the corporate cartels, crooked cops, and criminal gangs which have somehow found their way to Space Portland, there are a few other unique factions, such as the Dreamers, which are apparently robots with pseudo-uplifted animal brains.
I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to represent, but whatever. Oh, and also the United States government is funding fundamentalist religious groups and sympathetic right-wing governments in order to undermine space because reasons.
The game's mechanic is basically 2d6+stat, nothing to write home about here. There's some PbtA influence too.
You get your choice of Origins from the many people who call Space Portland home, such as androids, refugees, ex-cops, and...
... Yeah.
One thing of note is that characters start with Burdens, a negative ability that represents how bad shape you are economically. Burdens are acquired by taking cyberware during chargen, or picking traits that make you careless with your spending, or by having a bunch of student loans.
Before every mission, if you have Burden, there's a chance you don't make rent this month. This is somehow the fault of the capitalist society that keeps people in poverty so that the rich can exploit them. But here's the thing: Almost all sources of Burdens are taken on voluntarily. You don't need to go deep into debt for cyberware or a few more skill points. You could be smarter with your money or choice of career. If you're starting with Burdens, it's because you made some retarded choices in your life, and yet somehow it is capitalism's fault when you can't pay back all the debt you took on.
But Wallace, what about medically necessary cyberware? Nope, that doesn't count towards your Burden. At least the dystopian cyberpunk future still offers good health insurance.
If you need more money, the planned futuristic city of Space Portland has a thriving gig economy.
Unfortunately, the game features an Ale And Whores rule that decays any cash you save up, making escape from all those Burdens you picked up functionally almost impossible.
Next time: Grand Cross!
