Bicycle Cybertech Playing Cards

Richard

Originally called the Cyberpunk deck, the Cybertech Playing Cards are the handiwork of artist Jamie Meza.

This deck was inspired by the Cyberpunk literary genre. The creator describes the world of these playing cards as follows: "a dystopian society where humans are mixed with machines and also physically plugin to something that today we call the internet. In this chaotic world full of conspirators and oppression many gangs are rising, trying to survive for the crumbs left by the mega corporations. This deck shows you four of those gangs and we will leave the rest of the story to your imagination."

Produced in a limited run of 2500, finished with individually numbered seals, this deck has a fully custom tuck box with artwork that matches the cardbacks on the reverse side, and an intriguing image corresponding to the Ace of Spades on the front.

Everything about the faces of the cards is fully custom, with a muted grey background and border, a stylish dirty white panel, plus fully custom fonts and pip arrangements. Everything that can be customized has been, and the direction of the artwork has all been steered by the dystopian theme. Jamie has been a long time fan of the sci-fi fiction genre, as he describes, "especially cyberpunk that blends between man and machine, the matrix concept and a crashed society."

Clearly Jamie has put a lot of thought into the background story that he's captured in these cards. "In the process I wrote a short story of each gang and character, also I wrote shorts text about the society of that world with many common topics in this story; like mega-corporation, mars, technocracy and dystopia."

The card-backs are far from ordinary, so there's no mistaking the fact that we are entering an unusual and apocalyptic type world, with a machine like face staring back at us from the cards. The borderless design actually works surprisingly well given the lined patterns on the sides of the cards, which produce attractive fans and spreads.

In line with the dystopian narrative and setting, each of the four suits corresponds to one of the four gangs depicted by the deck, as follows:
Clubs: The Brotherhood
Hearts: Pirates
Spades: Good Boys
Diamonds: Yaxuka

Meanwhile the Jokers feature some more light-hearted characters in masks. There's also some real creativity evident in the two bonus gaff cards, one which looks like a spinning Queen of Hearts, and the other which offers a unique "your card" reveal. - BGG reviewer EndersGame