Originally published for GameRound during Playtesting Period in June, 2022.
Have you ever thought of becoming a Private Investigator in 1984? Perhaps even handpick your team of agents to get the job done? Then slam the brakes on your DeLorean, put down the keytar, slap on some legwarmers, and get your hairspray out to do just that while playing Rough Justice: ’84.
Set in a synthwave dystopia called Seneca City, where crime is rampant enough to warrant PIs to enforce the law, you – Jim Baylor – are asked by your old friend Hank to step in and assist with a heavy caseload. Two other Case Officers, Larry and Penny, will call you for help with Surveillance and Repossession cases since crime never sleeps.
Rough Justice: ’84 is a tabletop-inspired, pausable real-time strategy, resource, and time management game that will test your mettle, luck (and blood pressure) when solving a case. Utilizing dice, cards, action points, skills, and your brain, send your best-hired Agent as quickly as possible to the job location, get paid, and gain cash and Reputation with Hank, Larry, and Penny, respectively. An Agent can purchase limited-use Gear to buff a skill while rolling the dice and increase their chances for success. If the odds are still not looking favorable before the dice roll, an Action Point (if the Agent has any available) can be added.
While a case may not always be resolved by way of a dice roll, there may sometimes be the choice to resolve your investigation by way of realistic minigames such as Hotwiring a vehicle, a Polygraph test, VCR Tracking, Lockpicking, and Morse Code to name a few. But be warned – your memory and reflex skills will be tested throughout your playthrough. Each caseload needs to be completed within a time limit; otherwise, it will result in instant failure, and you will lose your Reputation with whoever assigned it. The caseloads often have more than one case, so even if you fail one, completing the others within the time limit will hopefully balance out enough to get your Reputation up and unlock the perks that come with it. Nevertheless, always try your best to get the job done but be mindful of multiple failures, as this can result in losing money, losing Reputation levels (which REALLY hurts losing the ability to hire Tier 2 Agents once they’re unlocked), and can even result in a dreaded Game Over situation – yes, I pushed my luck to see just what would happen when my bank account was overdrawn and had back to back failures; I met the Main Menu screen.
Here in 2022, I’ve not found myself needing to rely on Morse Code knowledge in my usual day-to-day, so thankfully, there are descriptive Tutorials for all minigames with videos included to assist the player. These tutorials can be accessed at any time. If you really want to test yourself, you can try any of the minigames with varying difficulty settings (Rookie through Hardcore), which can almost be like a game within itself if you enjoy a challenge.
For the purpose of this review, I played the game when it first became available to playtest on G.Round, and then replayed it again on June 21st with the most recent updates pushed through. A lot of changes happened – which is why there has been a delay in getting a properly written review put together for the game so that I could compare the versions if there was a big difference. Despite some game functions being removed (such as Moral Choice options exchanged for more dice rolls while working for Hank), there have also been many improvements and bug fixes, which shows a hard-working development team behind the scenes promptly tending to their game. While I was really pleased in my initial playthrough that Moral Choices existed as an outcome of choosing to resolve a case the way *you* would want to with the options given (and not just relying on your Agent’s skillset), the Development team did advise they plan to utilize Moral Choices elsewhere in the game, further down the line in its’ development.
The only other feedback I would present for the game overall as a foreshadowing would be difficulty scaling over time. For example, having longer countdowns to accept and/or complete cases earlier on or for Tier 1 assignments and less time available on Tier 3 assignments. I felt like the game could be punishing from the beginning, so having some baby steps to help ease in (or offering a Game Difficulty choice) would be welcomed, especially for players new to TTRPG-style games, especially when no Save function exists.
Overall, Rough Justice: ’84 is a promising game with an interesting backstory, glorious artwork, clever minigames, and one of the perfect gaming soundtracks I’ve heard to date. If this is what the demo looks like, I can’t wait to see its’ final form.
Here’s a highlight of gameplay pre-updates when it was initially released on G.Round
Disclaimer: While all care is taken to ensure that my reviews are as accurate and informative from my perspective as possible, I am usually playing while streaming and/or within a time restraint where I may miss or overlook a game function/cue/mechanic mentioned in the feedback I am providing at the time of writing. Any oversights may or may not be construed as feedback towards the ease of accessibility (or lack thereof) on a game currently in development.