With all that hype and conversation generated these days on robots & AI. Wouldn’t you want to get a feel of how it is like to take on AI & it’s sentinel army?

Cyberdoom Tower was a 1-2 player boardgame that sets stage in a Sci-Fi world AI tower. It was designed by Marco Salogni & Zemilio and published by Little Rocket Games in English & Italian in 2021. Subsequently, it was published by other publishers like Maldito Games, Giga Mech Games & Matagot & Friends via their own distributions, and channels like Kickstarter & Amazon. The best part of the game from my own subjective take, is it can be a single player boardgame.

Cyberdoom Tower was a reasonable paced, challenging 1-2 person Sci-Fi boardgame – It is a bit repetitive on subsequent plays but it offers a great theme & good fun in taking on the sentinels & it’s AI master

I am always fond of boardgames and the collections that surrounds it. Yet I don’t really get to play them because they all require a few players and I just don’t have those various resources around me. However, recently I found quite a few interesting boardgames that were designed for single player. And I conveniently got them via Amazon. Cyberdoom Tower is one of them. I love Sci-Fi so getting this game is a no-brainer for me. Let’s see what it is and how it works.

Name	Cyberdoom Tower
Type	Boardgame
Versions	Cyberdoom Tower (English Edition), Torre Ciberdiabólica (Spanish Edition), Cyberdoom Tower (French Edition), Cyberdoom Tower (English & Italian Edition)
Add-on Modules	n/a
Years	Cyberdoom Tower (English Edition), Torre Ciberdiabólica (Spanish Edition), Cyberdoom Tower (French Edition) – 2022 Cyberdoom Tower (English & Italian Edition) – 2021
Manufacturer/ Distributors	Little Rocket Games, Maldito Games, Giga Mech Games & Matagot & Friends
Platform	N/A
No. of Players	1-2
Listed Suitable Age	8+
Batteries	N/A

What is Cyberdoom Tower?

Cyberdoom Tower is a 1-2 player boardgame. It isn’t a travel game even though it has a small box size. The game is about defeating the AI on top of the tower and thus saving humanity (Even if you managed, I figured someone/ something will still do time travel and restart that termination process?). Jokes aside, the game wasn’t easy to beat and you need some time to digest through the guidebook and rules before you can be fully engaged in the fight for human survival VS the machines.

You represent the hope of human civilization, where you get a geared power suit that can unlock skills and use the gathered items. But watch out, you only have so much time and resources as you go up the tower. Else, you will be in trouble that the sentinels are going after you by closing in on your position. (Just a random thought, can we have one player going on frontal assault as distraction, while the another going on stealth and both players race to get to the top in their own way?).

The game surrounds the placements of tokens at appropriate spots, and moving your player piece to collect enough keys so that you can reach the AI. The encountering and fighting the sentinels & AI is about the dice rolling. Thus, the fun here is how you strategically decide to move your player piece, use skills & items, then try your luck in grabbing the resources while having random factors on the item gathered and fights. As you gather and prepare for that final battle, you are also running against the clock because the sentinels will close in on you as the game progresses.

Next, let’s look at the gameplay and setup.

Cyberdoom Tower Gameplay

Here is a quick feel of how it is to setup and play Cyberdoom Tower:

• Setup the floors – You start with building your tower with randomly picked tower floor cards. They represent the tower levels. You build it taller with 5 levels if you play with another player and shorter of 4 if on your own. You randomly draw the sentinels cards that matches the number of tower cards. Additionally, you pick one single AI card and put it on top of the tower (Here I think, can you umm.. snipe it off the top floor? I guess not!).
• Setup the tokens – Then, you setup the tokens on the floors. You put the key, control board, round counter token on the floor cards. Also, you put dice & skill tokens on your character card.
• The game objective – You game objective is to go through each floor (Each turn you have 3 actions you can take) so you can get enough keys to unlock the control panel. By unlocking the control panel you can get to the AI (and you need to beat it!) to save humanity.
• The game journey – The thing is, you have to (must) go through enough floors so that you are geared up, levelled up and thus powerful enough to beat that bad bad AI at the top.
• The game turns – And beware because each turn passed, the round counter token pushes forward. And so eventually you have like only a maximum of 7-9 turns to get to the AI. As if you don’t, the game will get harder as all the sentinels are right at the doorsteps of each floor.

I think I just wrote it in simple terms here, but it is better to leave the details for your own read and enjoyment when you play the game.

Thoughts on the Cyberdoom Tower gameplay

Overall, I felt the game is reasonable paced. As you can’t really take your time because the sentinels push forward with the round counter. And it forces you to take prompt steps because you know you will miss certain items and keys if you held out for too long. The sentinels also won’t give you any time to breathe as they have range, and most detects well. So it is like, once you enter the tower, you better act quickly!

My only complain was there isn’t a simple mode/ harder options where you can spice up the game with new objectives and gameplay. It gets really repetitive once I got to my 3rd play through. But I have to say I have no regret getting Cyberdoom Tower. It is a nice little game to own.

Why do I enjoy a single player boardgame? The below is my take.

The single player boardgame journey

Normally, you need setup, people, and confirm the rules with each other. For a single player game, it is up to you to determine what they are. And I felt I will miss that fun part of debating the rules. At times, I will just think ok that’s what let me just play it or skip through it. Of course, I guess that at times I spoiled some of the fun from the game designer especially when the game isn’t as simple.

That aside, at times I just wish to casually play a game (not necessarily needing it to be simple). Video games are of course an option but you do want different media, genre, types of things that you can enjoy at different time and place. For example, I sometimes enjoy just transforming my Transformers robots back and forth. It is great to have a boardgame that is 1 player at times.

For a good 1 player game, I think a few things comes to my mind of being “great” to have:

• Easy to setup – And easy to reference;
• A great read – I don’t mind reading slowly like a bedtime story;
• Containable tokens and easy to doze off – Like a travel game of sort where you can just close the lid or box and come back to it later;
• Fun logic – I think most games have, but bear with me here;
• Interesting choices and randomness – I do think you need it because usually when you play with other people, the interaction is like 80% of the game. Now you play by yourself it gets repetitive if not;
• Replicability – Taking all the above, I think it is important that you come back on your next 1 player game not feeling repetitive.

Releases/ Collector’s Guide

The following is a table showing the Cyberdoom Tower versions over the years, and also the supplementary product:

Version & Language	Publisher	Published Year	Picture
Cyberdoom Tower (English Edition)	Giga Mech Games	2022	Picture1
Torre Ciberdiabólica (Spanish Edition)	Maldito Games	2022	Picture2
Cyberdoom Tower (French Edition)	Matagot & Friends	2022	Picture3
Cyberdoom Tower (English & Italian Edition)	Little Rocket Games	2021	Picture4
Cyberdoom Tower Playmat	Little Rocket Games	N/a	Picture4

1: https://gigamechgames.com/the-blue-collection/
2: https://www.malditogames.com/juegos/torre-ciberdiabolica-juego/
3: https://matagot-friends.com/france/en/
4: https://www.littlerocketgames.com/product/cyderdoom-tower/

What’s in the Box? Product contents of Cyberdoom Tower

• Cards
  • 2 player cards
  • 5 tower cards
  • 6 equipment cards
  • 6 sentinel cards
  • 2 AI cards
• Tokens
  • 2 Meeples (player shaped tokens)
  • 6 ability tokens
  • 5 key tokens
  • 1 control panel token
  • 1 round counter cube token
  • 12 ‘X’ tokens
  • 6 damage tokens
• Dice
  • 4 White dice
  • 4 Red dice
  • 2 Green dice
  • 2 Yellow dice
• 1 rulebook

Final thoughts

As I write this review, I started to do small things (since I have limited time to write and enjoy my night) such as playing a small dice game to duel the sentinels & AI. And as expected I failed because it was out of context (my player has no upgrades, skills what not). But however, I enjoyed the dice rolls and made silly changes to the rules such as whoever got the best of each other 2/3 times win and sometimes I got an unlimited ammo weapon item. The actual game requires a longer table space and a lot of pieces so it isn’t feasible for me at times.

Cyberdoom Tower is a nice game to play overall. Although I felt on my 2nd or 3rd run it is slightly repetitive already, it is still fun to play and I enjoyed the dice rolling and matching with the sentinel cards. The rulebook can do a bit better by showing more examples, and elaborating on some of the rules. As a newbie it is very useful to read examples on the gameplay.

What is next? I would love to have this game republished so that there are more random factors, more sentinels to pick from, more extra gaming options, the package more compact, and that I can play it casually conveniently.

Pros (Why It is Awesome)

• I love the sentinel and AI cards, I wish there are more of them to shuffle from. And more strange rules to some of them.
• It can be played by one person and with a player 2 option available.
• The box is compact. I can just hide it at the corner of my cupboard.

Cons (What could be done better)

• You need a relatively large desk to play.
• The English manual is ambiguous (I am unsure of the other languages) I got lost and just made a guess at some rules such as the “not yet activated” sentinels will not push forward as the round counter moves forth. As I think it kind of doesn’t make sense for a machine that’s inactive to move?
• I wish there are more AI & sentinels.
• More weapon and item cards. Some items are quite OP in my opinion.
• There needs to be more gameplay options and added challenges.
• I am sure the playmat is useful, but it will be too big to keep for me and it is pricey.

Further readings & resources:

• BGG – A site dedicated to boardgames with some details on the versions and product descriptions & specs.

Should you have further questions or comments, please let me know in the comments below I will try best to answer them! I gone pretty deep in Barcode Battler so I am confident I can answer most of your questions! 🙂

Written by NKBDL for Strategy Games Evolution, Aug 30, 2024

Disclaimer: All pictures shown on the article were taken by me from my own collections. For pictures that are linked out, and are very specific like those really rare items, I downloaded them from online auction websites and will reference them as best as possible. As these websites listings are quite dynamic it is very hard to keep a permanent link to them. If you found yourself to be the owner of such photos and I didn’t do my reference right, please contact me right away. Thank you!

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