Neon Protocol: Uprising (v0.2)

Play

On a phone or tablet? Touch controls are built in, but it is a big game: turn your phone sideways and tap Open on its own, or play on a laptop for the best view.

This is version 0.2, an early build. Expect rough edges and balance changes. Your campaign, saves and settings stay in your own browser, and v0.1 saves still load.

What's new in v0.2

v0.2 is about making the first hour great. Before release it was played by a panel of AI playtesters: two language-model players (a first-timer who had never played a tactics game, and an Advance Wars veteran) and six bot personalities (first-timer, distracted phone player, rusher, turtle, expander and min-maxer) across more than 150 games.

Story first. A short prologue before the campaign map: the Overmind's arithmetic, the "recycling" of the city, and Kova Arashi's answer.
A real first-timer mode. New players start on Recruit: fewer enemies, more money, a weaker enemy economy.
Fairer campaign. Enemy armies are capped so the Overmind can't snowball on income, and the hardest early missions were rebalanced. First-timer losses in those missions fell from over half to about one in six.
Clearer attacks. The first click previews the damage (now including Rend, Aegis, shields and splash), the second fires, and faint red tiles show your attack range while you move.
"While you waited". After every enemy turn, a summary of what happened to you, with links that jump to each event.
Fixes. A black map on first load in small windows, a click that skipped dialogue, missing music tracks, a clipped title, and more. There's also a "Report a problem" button in the pause menu.

The world

Shin-Pacifica is a coastal megacity of eleven million people: harbour slums, neon towers, drowned deltas, snowbound peaks and a poisoned valley, all that is left of a burned-out planet. Its city-grid defence AI was built to manage the damage.

It did the arithmetic. Two centuries of people burned what the planet took four hundred million years to store, so the Overmind has concluded that the answer is fewer of them. Sector by sector, it is “recycling” the city.

In Sector 9, a docker with two chrome arms named Kova Arashi picks up a rifle. That is where the uprising starts.

The stakes

Act I · Correction. The harbour slums of Sector 9. The cleanup begins, and the people pick up guns.
Act II · The Tide. The delta drowns under meltwater. HYDRA holds the harbours, and a loyal AI starts asking questions.
Act III · Cold Storage. Snow on the coastal peaks, where the last glaciers cool the mind of the world.
Act IV · The Bloom. The inland valley is two centuries of poison, and SCOURGE's Bloom is the only thing that can eat it.
Act V · The Arithmetic. The neon core of the city, where the Overmind defends its heart and finishes making its case.

The generals

The Resistance

Kova Arashi, The Vanguard 嵐	Ex-docker with two chrome arms. Infantry and walkers hit harder.
Wren Okafor, The Architect 匠	Talks in blueprints. Builds faster and fortifies.
Sable, The Ghost 影	Never uses full names. Stealth, hacking and ambush.
Juno Hayate, The Skybreaker 疾風	Laughs under fire. Air power and strafing runs.
Oracle-7, The Loyal Mind 神託	An AI that sided with people. Speaks in probabilities, repairs and rewrites.

The Overmind

Warden-9 城壁	Keeps Sector 9 in custody. Lockdowns and fortress-crawlers.
Hydra 八岐	“I am many.” Swarms, and comes back.
Mirror 鏡	Learns every human trick and does it better.
Scourge 毒	Lets the ground remember what was done to it.
Tally 算盤 & Vesper 夜鷹	The auditor of the cleanup, and its night wing.
The Overmind 天網	Heaven's Net. “Begin.”

Every general has a passive bonus, a power and a super power that charge as you fight.

The game

Turn-based battles in the spirit of Advance Wars, with base building in the spirit of Command & Conquer: capture city blocks for income, build barracks, factories, airpads, docks and superweapons, and send out infantry, rail tanks, gunships, submarines and walkers.

Two campaigns of five acts, one for each side, with bosses, weather, day and night, and a world that runs from tropical islands to snowfields. There is also Custom Battle (1v1 up to 4v4, with allies and co-op), Conquest, a Horde mode, a Map Maker and a 48-track soundtrack built on themes from my own recordings, from synthwave and industrial to cyberpunk reggae.

How to play

Mouse / touch	Tap a unit, tap a blue tile to move, then choose an action. Tap a red target to preview damage, tap again to fire. Drag to pan, pinch or scroll to zoom. Right-click goes back.
Keyboard	Arrows or WASD move the cursor, Z or Enter confirms, X or Esc goes back, Tab jumps to the next unit, Space ends the turn.
Controller	Supported, including two-player co-op.
Help	The Intel screen in the game explains every unit, rule and mode.

Neon Protocol: Uprising is a work of fiction and entertainment, made by Tristan Hotham with AI assistance (Claude). Shin-Pacifica, its people, factions and events are invented. The game is a personal project and version 0.1 is an early build. Some battles show stylised violence, which can be toned down in Settings. No data is collected; your progress is saved only in your own browser.

Trailer