Some game concepts immediately grab my attention, because they're really good, really bad, or just really weird. Dynopunk (opens in new tab) is definitely on that list and you can probably guess why: You play as Chris, a T-rex who moves to the neon metropolis of Synth City to open an electronics repair shop so he can fix broken gadgets with his little tiny arms.
That's definitely in the "weird" category as far as I'm concerned. But fixing busted gizmos as a cyberpunk T-rex is just the start of it. Dinosaurs rule the world in Dynopunk—there was no extinction event to clear the way for mammals in this particular alt-history world—but Chris is the last T-rex on the planet for some reason, and he's lonely. So his ultimate goal isn't just to fix broken electronics: He aims to build a time machine so he can travel back into the past and search for his true love.
Developer Tomato Fantasy Games said each character in the game has "unique traits, dreams, and personal stories," while the branching story is driven by both your conversations with your customers and the quality of your work. You can make small talk or strike up a deep heart-to-heart, all in hopes of getting a good tip and, I would assume, a repeat customer. Naturally, if things go the wrong way (and as anyone who's ever worked in customer service can tell you, sooner or later they will), you'll also have to deal with less pleasant interactions and whatever consequences they bring.
A Dynopunk demo is available now (and has been for some time), but there's also a new, free prologue chapter called Dynopunk: Welcome to Synth-City (opens in new tab) that went live on Steam today. The original demo is linear, with about 1.5 hours of gameplay, while the new prologue offers roughly double that playtime over a full seven-day game week. That's enough time to pick up the basics of the electronic repair trade, to get to know a bit about your "quirky assistant" (a talking printer), and learn how to serve drinks to your customer, which is apparently a vital part of customer service in the future.
Dynopunk also announced its full release date today: It's set to go live on May 25.
