I've just returned home from a 14 hour train ride from GenCon, so I'll be brief now, and I'll answer any questions tomorrow, to the best of my recollection.
Cyprian Rifts is a small-scale space ship game between small to medium ships – frigate, destroyer and cruiser classes. We played a 3 on 3 demo, and that size would seem to work best for a game of this level of complexity. We were given cruisers for this particular session, though other sessions used the smaller ships.
Brief overview:
Sequence of play: Players decide upon and record their velocity changed for the turn (these are determined by their ship's thrust rating), and then roll for initiative. D10s and d6s, two of each, are used for the game. There are both threshold rolls and opposed rolls in the game.
Movement: Movement for all ships takes place following initiative order. Ships may move as desired when it is their turn, according to turn radius limitations determined by their current velocity. Slower ships can turn more sharply, but if they have the misfortune to go first, they will have less chance to avoid being outmaneuvered by ships moving later. The game is unapologetically 2-D, which makes for faster if less "realistic" play. Movement was pleasingly dynamic; the ships handle more like formula 1 cars than like lumbering "space dreadnaughts" if you are willing to pilot them aggressively. "Speed is life", the fighter pilot's maxim, definitely applied to our battle. My team savaged the other side with speedy firing runs for several turns until they overcame their "ships-of-the-line" mindset and started to maneuver creatively. There were two interesting terrain features on the map used, gravity wells which impeded movement and projectile weaponry, and nebulas, which gave small defensive bonuses to ships hiding in them. More are planned.
Firing: All ships at the demo had front, left front/ side, rightt front/ side, and Land R side/ rear arcs. The best weaponry is deployed along the narrow front arc, but all arcs are capable of causing significant damage. Mines and homing missiles of several types are also available in small quantities. Combat is resolved simultaneously, and damage is applied simultaneously. There are several types of weapons with slightly different bonuses…which I can't remember. Fighters do not exist. The ships are quite tough: Though the designer says that with a few lucky hits, a ship can take down an equivalent enemy ship in just a few turns, in our brief experience we found ships to be very hard to kill, perhaps even a bit too hard. At the end of about 8 turns, only two ships were destroyed and two moderately wounded. On the other hand, we were playing with cruisers, the ships at the heavy end of the range.
Impressions: For me, the game strikes just the right balance for optimal enjoyment. The rules are fine-grained enough that good tactics wins over good die-rolling, but simple enough that "calculation fatigue" does not set in, and a small but satisfying game could be played in 60-90 minutes. What we found especially fun are the randomly-drawn perks which customize each ship. Most are one-time effects. Some perks are a function of the crew or captain, and some the result of unique artifacts discovered by particular crew. TThese add a nice cinematic touch to the game. In our demo, I used an alien inertial damping device which caused my opponent to decelerate, leaving him unable to avoid the minefield I'd just laid across his bow. He responded a few turns later by forcing me to save against his "diplomatic imunity" ploy. I failed the save, and thus for a turn I held my fire, believing him to be carrying an important diplomat whom I would be unwilling to kill. Great fun!
Cyprian Rifts looks to be an excellent game. Going into the demo, I hadn't had the desire to pick up a space combat game in years, but this game is going to bring me back into the fold.
Cyprian Rifts, if I am remembering correctly, is expected to be released some time this year, in both pdf and book forms. Check it out. cyprianrift.com
Andy
