Midnight Protocol is a cyberpunk hacking RPG that cuts out all the filler

Video games have taught me that hacking mainly involves two things: capturing little computer-shaped nodes and typing in a command line. Midnight Protocol is no exception. Released last month by Iceberg Interactive, it joins a glut of cyberpunk games from the past couple of years, and it doesn’t add any single standout innovation to a pretty familiar formula. But it’s one of the best iterations of that formula I’ve seen: mechanically elegant, narratively economical, and crafted with care.

Midnight Protocol is noir cyber-crime by way of turn-based roleplaying games and spatial puzzles. When you log into its slightly airspace-looking simulated computer desktop, you’ll learn that your pseudonym is Data, and you’re a master hacker who just...

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