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(+1)

BALIKBAYAN is definitely one of my new favorite cyberpunk games.

It's 33 pages, mostly black-and-white, GM'd or GMless, and very narrative-focused.

It's also visually garish. Everything is laid out clearly on the page, but there's a riotous amount of contrast. And I think maybe any other game might have fumbled this approach, but with BALIKBAYAN it just forces you to pay attention.

Plotwise, BALIKBAYAN feels like Blade Runner, but seen from the perspective of the replicants---and with the caveat that the replicants are literal ghosts in the machine---elementals that have been confined and repurposed to power human technology. The writing is lovely and punchy, and there's no shortage of atmosphere and flavor. It also deeply enmeshes cyberpunk with the supernatural, on a level that I don't think I've seen another game manage to achieve (including SR and BloodNet and stuff like that.)

BALIKBAYAN's mechanics are a thing folks might bounce off of, because they're Belonging Outside Belonging, which makes BALIKBAYAN a rare non-crunch cyberpunk game. However, BALIKBAYAN also works in an overarching narrative system, where actions in the game tick boxes on Reckoning/Homecoming tracks, which both trigger responses from the fiction, and move the game towards a clear end-state.

Again, it's not crunch, but it is a really cool mechanical element, and it keeps the story both anchored and always moving forward.

Overall, I would strongly recommend this to anyone who likes flavor and atmosphere, narrative games, and the supernatural.


Minor Issues:

-page 26, Use your magic with, "by paying a token you the choice is easier" extra 'you'

-page 30, Weak Question, this feels a little like it wants its own section. At minimum, it might benefit from an example of what a typical weak question is, especially for folks that haven't played or read Belonging Outside Belonging games before and don't quite have an intuitive sense of how this element should work.

(+3)

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such thorough and well written feedback! BALIKBAYAN is undergoing some major playtesting so I appreciate any insight that can help the game be easier to pick up and play ❤️

It's a really cool game. Thank you for writing it!