CyberDeck Roadmap
A deckbuilder where every run feels like a new game — different characters, different builds, different stories — in a cyberpunk universe you fall in love with.
CyberDeck ships incrementally. Each milestone below is a public commitment — what's in the game now, and what's next. This page is regenerated from our internal roadmap every day. Last updated: .
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Steam Early Access
CyberDeck arrives on Steam. Playable on Steam Deck. The complete game experience: 4 characters, 3 acts, full content, full polish. (Sound design ships in a post-EA update.)
What ships in this milestone
- Steam store page live with trailer + screenshots + 3 featured cards
- Zero P0 bugs at ship time
- Steam Deck validation passed (Verified or Playable)
- 100% visual polish — every screen, every transition, every card
- Full content coverage — all acts/characters/cards/chrome/stims
Sprints
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Draft Ships & Content Completeness
April 21, 2026 – April 27, 2026All 374 cards playable with final art. Every screen polished. Save-load works end-to-end. The game is complete enough to play on repeat.
7 features
- 100% Card Art Coverage P0
Every card in every screen has final art, zero placeholders.
Audit all 374 cards against public/art/; dispatch artist workers for gaps.
- Save & Resume P0
Close the tab, come back later, pick up exactly where you left off.
Auto-save to localStorage after every map node and every combat turn. On launch, detect save and offer resume.
- Death & Victory Narrative P1
Each character says something in-character when they die or win a run.
Wire existing death_quotes.json and victory_narrative.json to end-of-run screens, keyed by character + cause of death/win.
- Steam Deck Text Readability P1
Every word in the game is readable at arm's length on a 7-inch Steam Deck screen.
Minimum 16px body text at 1280x800. Per-screen sweep via visual-qa against live build.
- Lore Terminology Audit P1
The game speaks CyberDeck: Bandwidth, Credits, Firewall, Chrome, Corruption. No STS vocabulary anywhere visible.
Static-analysis test enforces D-001 terminology across all player-facing strings.
- v3084 Known-Bug Sweep P0
All 40+ bugs identified in the April 2026 playtest are fixed.
GitHub issues labeled source/genius-audit and system/* closed. Class-level tests added per G18.
- Mechanical Description Completeness P1
Every card shows exactly what it does in plain language.
Per G15, describeEffect.ts renders a non-empty, non-'undefined' string for every card in data/.
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Steam Deck Shakedown
April 28, 2026 – May 4, 2026The game feels right with a controller. Every screen, every interaction, every card — fully playable on gamepad, keyboard, or mouse.
5 features
- Full Gamepad Navigation P0
D-pad selects, A confirms, B cancels — every screen, every menu.
Per G5, E2E test completes one full combat on each operator with gamepad only. Same for map, shop, upgrade, salvage, events.
- Input Mode State Machine P1
Switching between keyboard, mouse, and gamepad never steals your focus cursor.
Per G6, input-mode state machine: mouse-active | keyboard-active | gamepad-active. Mouse goes passive when keyboard/gamepad active.
- Gamepad ↔ Mouse Parity P1
Anything you can do with a mouse you can do with a gamepad, same outcome.
E2E test suite covers selection, scroll, tooltips, confirm, cancel for all 3 input methods on every screen.
- Steam Deck Hardware Validation P0
The game runs smoothly on an actual Steam Deck (not just a dev machine).
Native desktop build run via /cyberdeck:native-build-test; manual play session on physical Deck.
- Skippable Intros P2
Impatient players can A-button past every boss intro and narrative text box.
Per G14, E2E assertion on every intro screen — confirm button advances or dismisses.
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Visual Polish Sweep (G1–G20)
May 5, 2026 – May 11, 2026Every card looks and behaves consistently. Every state change you make is visible. No guessing what just happened.
7 features
- Single Card Component P1
A card in the shop, in your hand, in a preview, in the deck viewer — looks and feels identical everywhere.
Per G1, one Card<T> component; delete bespoke renderers; lint rule rejects any other card-import.
- Mechanics-First Tooltips P1
Chrome tooltips show what an item DOES before the lore flavor.
Per G19/G20, short_text primary, lore secondary; static-analysis test in tooltipConsistency.test.ts.
- Single Tooltip System P1
Only one popup visible at a time. No double popups when hovering keywords.
Per G4, CardRenderer in card-grid contexts passes disableTooltips; single Tooltip portal.
- Every State Change Is Visible P1
Debuff applied — you see it. Card burned — you see it. Buff consumed — you see it.
Per G3/G9, runtime assertion in applyEffect(); CardTransition event on every DeckManager mutation; missing animation renders visible placeholder.
- Consistent Color Coding P2
Damage red, credits gold, buff green, debuff red, baseline cyan. Bold everywhere for glance-readability.
Per G10, design tokens in shared-components.css; lint rule rejects inline hex colors.
- Card Animation Coverage P1
Every card motion is animated — draw, play, discard, burn, shuffle, exhaust.
Per G9, DeckManager cannot mutate card position without firing a CardTransition event; new states register an animation or get a visible placeholder.
- Ephemeral Cards Actually Burn P1
Token cards (like Tip-Off's spawns) don't persist to your next combat.
Per G11, isEphemeral schema flag + post-combat prune; per-token scenario test.
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Ship to Steam EA
May 12, 2026 – May 15, 2026CyberDeck is on Steam.
5 features
- Steam Store Page P0
Real trailer, 8-12 screenshots, 3 featured cards, polished store copy. The first impression on Steam.
Copy sourced from SSOT steam-ea-0515.summary_player; trailer is a 60-second gameplay-focused cut.
- Steam Build Pipeline P0
Clicking Install on Steam actually works end-to-end.
Promote dev → stable → Steam package; test install on 2 fresh machines.
- Zero P0 Bugs at Ship P0
No crashes, no save corruption, no progression blockers at launch.
Final P0 sweep + lock; any P0 discovered blocks ship.
- Steam Deck Verified Submission P1
Valve marks the game Verified (or at least Playable) for Steam Deck.
Submit via Steamworks after Sprint 2 hardware validation passes.
- Launch-Day Announcement P1
Players see 'CyberDeck is live on Steam' on Discord and cybersprawl.ai at launch.
Daily release summary script uses special launch-day template.
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Full Game (GA)
CyberDeck 1.0. Now with sound design, mechanical innovations, and balance tuned from real EA play data.
What ships in this milestone
- Sound design: 5 SFX categories + ambient tracks
- Between-act Interface encounter — 3 trade-off chrome per act boss
- First-combat tutorial + Sprawl Threat Level UI exposed
- Content unlocks (start with 60% of cards, unlock via wins)
- AI balance automation per D-016 with EA-data-driven tuning
- Rarity tier scaffold (7 tiers per D-018; content migration separate session)
Sprints
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Post-EA Stabilization
May 16, 2026 – May 22, 2026The first wave of real-player bugs and feedback gets addressed fast. The game improves every day visibly.
7 features
- #player-feedback Discord Channel P0
Players can post bugs and feedback in Discord, and the team sees them automatically.
Discord listener bot creates GitHub issues with source/player-feedback label; replies in thread with issue link.
- Player-Feedback Priority Default P0
Player-reported bugs get addressed faster than internal ones.
Planner treats source/player-feedback as P1 baseline; adjustable per issue.
- Close-the-Loop Discord Replies P1
When the bug you reported is fixed, a bot posts 'fixed in build X — play here' in your Discord thread.
Bot watches merged PRs closing source/player-feedback issues; posts back to thread with stable-build link.
- Daily Release Summary P0
One Discord post + one Dispatch page entry per day summarizing what changed in the game — not a flood per PR.
Script reads merged PRs that day, groups by player-visible vs plumbing, writes ~300-word summary via Opus. launchd at 18:00 local. Per-PR Discord noise disabled.
- Stable Build Link P1
Every daily post links to play.cybersprawl.ai/latest/ — the most stable build of the day.
CI pipeline tags latest-known-good as 'latest'; daily summary links to it.
- EA Week-1 Bug Sweep P0
Every P0 and P1 bug players find in Week 1 of EA is fixed by end of that week.
Planner prioritization with higher worker throughput during the window.
- Telemetry & Crash Reporting P2
The team sees crashes players don't bother reporting and fixes them proactively.
Lightweight error capture to a Cloudflare Worker endpoint; aggregates nightly.
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Ascension UI + First-Combat Tutorial
May 23, 2026 – May 29, 2026New players learn how to play in their first combat. Returning players can crank difficulty up through Sprawl Threat Levels.
5 features
- Sprawl Threat Level UI P1
Difficulty slider on character select — higher threat means harder enemies and better rewards.
Expose existing ascension.ts with a 20-level selector (STS ascension parity). Persist max-reached per character.
- Threat Level Persistence P1
Your highest cleared threat level sticks around — a badge of honor per character.
runHistoryManager.ts already tracks it; expose on the character select UI.
- First-Combat Tutorial P1
Three to five contextual tooltips teach Bandwidth, enemy intents, and the End Turn button during your first fight.
onboarding.json wired to CombatScreen; tooltips skippable after first combat per character.
- Keyword Glossary (Pause Menu) P2
Pull up a reference from the pause menu — every keyword explained in plain language.
New GlossaryScreen.tsx reads from shared/keywords.ts.
- New-Player Flow P2
First run goes: character select → brief story intro → first combat with tutorial tooltips.
Main-menu state machine; intro is skippable.
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Interface Between Acts + Content Unlocks
May 30, 2026 – June 5, 2026At the end of each act, a Fixer offers you three trade-off Chromes — real choices with upside and real cost. New players unlock cards over their first several runs.
5 features
- Between-Act NPC Encounter Screen P1
After each act boss, a named character from the CyberIdle universe appears and offers you three Chromes to pick from.
New InterfaceScreen.tsx between act-boss and next map. Lore-appropriate NPC per act (Viktor Kaine / Tzu Yu / Olga).
- Trade-Off Chrome Design Set P1
Each Interface Chrome has a real upside and a real cost — you're choosing what to sacrifice, not just picking a buff.
12-15 new Chrome with dual effects. Examples: 'Overclocked Clock: +1 max Bandwidth, -2 max hand size'; 'Pirate Cache: +3 starting Credits per run, -10% combat damage'.
- Big-Upside / Medium-Downside Balance P2
Trade-offs always feel worth taking — no neutral swaps that just annoy you.
Validator: every trade-off Chrome's expected power uplift ≥ 1.3× its penalty (per 2026-04-21 CEO direction: net positive, not neutral).
- Content Unlocks P2
New players don't drown in 374 cards — you earn them over your first several runs.
Unlock groups tagged in card JSON; first run ~60% of each character's pool; wins unlock batches.
- Unlock Progress UI P2
See exactly which cards you haven't unlocked yet and what unlocks them.
CharacterSelectScreen shows locked card silhouettes + unlock hints ('Win with Chompy on threat 5 to unlock 4 cards').
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Sound + Balance + GA Ship
June 6, 2026 – June 15, 2026The game has sound. It sounds like cyberpunk. And every card has been tuned from real play data — build diversity is wide, no dominant meta.
6 features
- 5 SFX Categories P0
Card plays, damage, blocks, kills, and turn starts all have sound — with a cyberpunk audio identity.
Royalty-free SFX library + custom synth passes for the signature card-play sound (data transmission motif per D-017).
- Act Ambient Tracks P1
Each act has its own atmospheric music — CEO's original compositions.
Loop-safe cuts per act, synced with map/combat/event screens.
- AI Balance Automation P1
Cards within a rarity tier feel comparably powerful — no obvious-skip or obvious-pick cards.
Per D-016, 'Effective Power' formula (impact / bandwidth); sim-qa runs nightly and flags >15% variance within a rarity tier.
- Rarity Tier Scaffold P2
Shop and reward screens show 7 rarity tiers: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic.
Per D-018, schema extended to 7 tiers. Display tier ↔ power-tier mapping added. NOTE: actual migration of existing 374 cards into the new tier structure is deferred to a separate CEO planning session (issue labeled requires/ceo-session).
- EA Data-Driven Rebalance P1
Cards that everyone skipped in EA become playable; over-chosen cards get tuned.
1-week EA telemetry window analyzed before GA ship. Balance PR lands before launch.
- GA Ship P0
CyberDeck 1.0 on Steam — full launch, full feature set, balanced from real play data.
Same release checklist as Sprint 4 with sound included. Promotional push + post-launch support plan activated.
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