Metrorunner – All Aboard the Cube Train

Mirror City isn’t the kind of place that forgives mistakes. It’s fast, messy, and buzzing with neon life. In Metrorunner, you drop right into the middle of it, playing as a runner trying to carve out a name in the shadows. The city’s ruled by powerful corporations, but it’s the underworld where things really happen. Your job? Stay one step ahead. Take on risky jobs, hack into the city’s network, and build enough influence to stand out. Whoever has the most points at the end wins the respect of Mirror City’s hidden elite and walks away as its most legendary runner. For now, at least.

👥 1-5 players, ages 14+
⌛ Playing time: 30-90 minutes
📝 Designer: Stephen Kerr
🎨 Artwork: Ignacio Bazán Lazcano

🏢 Publisher: Thunderworks Games (review copy provided)

Gameplay Overview

Each turn in Metrorunner follows a simple flow: move, act, clean up.

You start by moving your runner along the city’s metro line. The first two spaces are always free, but going further costs resource cubes. If another runner is right in front of you, you skip over them to the next open space.

Then, you choose one action. There are two types. A location action is tied to the space you’re on. You might collect cubes, draw job cards, contact agents based on your notoriety, or attempt a hack. A district action lets you take a cube in the district’s colour or complete a job card that matches the current district. After any district action, you also collect all resource cubes sitting in that district’s supply space.

Jobs are central to the game. Each job card represents a task in a specific district. To complete one, you need to be in the right place and pay the required coloured cubes. The reward might be credits, more cubes, brute force tokens, or movement on the influence and notoriety tracks. Completed jobs slide under your player board and unlock ongoing powers and bonuses. Each slot holds up to three jobs, and once placed, they stay put.

When you hack, you try to complete a network card by connecting two green core nodes on a shared 3×3 grid of PANOP tiles. You get two free tile manipulations. These can be a rotation, a swap, or a shift. You can pay cubes for extra moves. If you connect the nodes, you earn the card’s reward. If you’ve unlocked the right upgrades on your influence track, you might even pull off bonus hacks. Fail to connect, and the card goes to the bottom of the deck. Each character has a unique hacking ability. Brute force tokens can turn a tile into a four-way connector for one hack.

As you complete jobs and pull off successful hacks, you move up on two tracks. Influence shows your sway with the city’s power players, while notoriety reflects your rep in the streets. Both are worth end-game points and unlock helpful abilities. Influence boosts your hacking. Notoriety increases your cube income when contacting agents.

Completed jobs also let you fulfill contracts. Each contract asks for specific job types in the same slot under your board. Freelance jobs can act as wild cards. Players also compete for majority in their home district. If you’ve completed more jobs from your district than anyone else, you’ll earn bonus points.

The game ends in one of three ways. When a player completes their ninth job, when a track marker reaches the final space, or when the job deck runs out. At that point, all players take one final turn. Points come from completed jobs, contracts, your position on the tracks, district majority, and leftover resources. The player with the highest score becomes the top operator in Mirror City. Not bad for a day’s work.

Game Info

Metrorunner is published by Thunderworks Games, the team behind titles like Roll Player, Cartographers, and Lockup. This one is the first published design from Stephen Kerr, and offers something a little different from the publisher’s usual fantasy settings. It plays one to five players, runs roughly 30 to 90 minutes depending on how many people are at the table, and includes a solo mode with a custom-built Rogue A.I. opponent. The game was funded on Kickstarter in early 2024 and is now available through retail and Thunderworks’ own shop.

Components & Production

Visually, Metrorunner knows what it’s doing. The artwork leans fully into that neon-soaked cyberpunk look, without overcomplicating the layout. The board is split into five colour-coded districts that are easy to read and clearly separated. The PANOP grid sits in the centre, looking like someone ripped a circuit board out of an old arcade machine. It’s stylish and easy to scan once you know what you’re looking for. The skull tile in particular is hard to miss, which is useful, because it blocks everything.

Each player gets a translucent runner figure in their own colour, along with matching tokens for tracking influence and notoriety. Player boards are cleanly laid out with slots for completed jobs, cube storage, and reminders for turn structure and boosts. Once you’ve done a round or two, you barely need to check the rulebook again.

The card design is tidy. Job cards show off little scenes from Mirror City’s seedy underbelly, while character cards add a comic-book vibe and display each runner’s special ability in a way that’s quick to understand. The icons are mostly self-explanatory and stay consistent throughout the game, which helps keep things moving.

The insert is practical, with a central tray and lid to store cubes and credits. Tokens are thick, cards are standard quality, and the iconography is solid. Nothing fancy for the sake of it. Just well-made and sensible.

Learning & Rulebook

The rulebook is structured in a clear and friendly way. It doesn’t bombard you with information, and there’s a good use of space and images to help break things down. Most of the trickier concepts, like hacking and job rewards, come with visual examples, which helps a lot the first time you play.

Everything is split up logically, and the terminology is consistent throughout. There are lots of examples included, which make it easier to explain the game to new players.

Gameplay & Complexity

This is a medium-weight game, and it plays like one. You’ve got planning to do, cubes to manage, and paths to think through, but it never feels overwhelming. Once the basic turn structure clicks, it becomes easy to settle into a rhythm.

The core loop is simple on paper. You collect cubes, move around the board, complete jobs, and maybe try your hand at hacking. But the game rewards players who take a step back to build toward something. There’s a lot of planning involved, especially if you’re aiming for contracts or trying to time boosts well. The flow is smooth and the mechanics all link up in intuitive ways, but it still takes a round or two to see how everything fits together.

What Works Well

One of Metrorunner’s strengths is how much you can get out of what seems like a small turn. You only get one action per round, but that single action can lead to clever combos if you time things well. The boost system adds a lot here. Being able to spend credits to bend the rules a bit (teleport, double-act, jump up a track) gives turns a nice feeling of control, without being too swingy.

One part that really sticks out is the PANOP grid. It sits right in the middle of the board and acts like its own little logic puzzle. You rotate tiles, shift rows, and try to link the right nodes together. If you like spatial puzzles, it’s a fun challenge. It rewards the player who’s willing to look ahead and use their resources well. That said, it can take some players a while to figure it out, especially when trying to chain extra hacks. So while it’s a cool part of the game, it’s not always the fastest.

What Didn’t Quite Land

Despite the clever systems, some parts of Metrorunner feel more relaxed than sharp. The metro movement is simple and does the job, but it rarely creates tension. You’re hardly ever blocked, and moving further just costs a cube or two, so it becomes a routine part of the turn rather than a strategic decision.

Job rewards are reliable, but not particularly surprising. Once you understand the pattern, there aren’t many moments where you feel like you’ve pulled off something extraordinary. It’s more about steady progress than big swings. This is fine, but it does mean that after a few plays, things might start to feel a bit samey.

The boosts, while powerful, sometimes allow players to skip over the more interesting decisions. A well-timed teleport or bonus action can be fun, but it can also bypass what would otherwise be a meaningful choice. And the hacking grid, as much as it adds flavour, is very much a solo experience. When one player is working through it, the others can’t do much except wait. With two or three players this isn’t an issue. At higher counts, you might find yourself reaching for a drink while someone else lines up their next big hack.

Player Count & Replayability

The game scales well mechanically, but the experience shifts depending on how many are playing. With two, turns are snappy and the board feels open, which makes it easier to plan and experiment. With more players, there’s more competition for districts and jobs, but also more downtime. Especially during the hacking phase, where only one person can go at a time.

There’s a decent amount of variability between sessions, thanks to randomised contracts, different characters, and new hacking setups. But the core structure doesn’t change much. Once you’ve played a few times, you’ll likely see familiar patterns in how you approach cubes, jobs, and contract planning. If you like that structure, it’s comforting. If you’re chasing novelty or tension, it might wear thin sooner.

Final Thoughts

Metrorunner is a good fit for players who enjoy games with a steady pace, clear personal goals, and minimal interference. It’s more about building quietly than outwitting your opponents. If you like spatial puzzles, resource management, and finding little efficiencies turn by turn, there’s definitely something here for you.

It’s not a game full of drama or hard decisions. There’s little direct conflict, and most players can go about their business without stepping on each other’s toes. For some groups, that’s a plus. For others, it might feel like the game never really heats up. The hacking puzzle is clever and satisfying, but can drag in bigger groups. And while the boosts are fun to use, they sometimes paper over choices that would be more interesting if you had to commit.

If you do give it a go, we’d recommend sticking to two or three players for the smoothest experience. And don’t forget about boosts: they’re easy to overlook, especially for new players, but they’re one of the more dynamic parts of the game. Also, plan your job slotting with contracts in mind early on. Leaving it until the final rounds often means missing out.

Metrorunner is a smartly built game with a clear sense of style and a thoughtful puzzle at its core. It won’t be for everyone, but if the pace and theme click for you, you’ll find plenty to enjoy as you work your way through Mirror City.

📝 We received a review copy from Thunderworks Games.