Set in a dystopian future, where the Moon is colonized and androids and clones are real, players take on the roles of murder investigators, investigating a murder within the fictional cities of New Angeles (a fictional future version of Los Angeles, but placed on the equator to accommodate a space elevator) and Heinlein, a colony on the Moon.
The Gameboard is made up of locations in the city of New Angeles and Heinlein separated into districts.
Players travel about the gameboard trying to obtain the playing-pieces representing leads (clues to the murder).
Victory Points are determined by correctly determining guilty and innocent suspects based in players suspect cards, uncovering the conspiracy and resolving players' personal plots, or all of the above, giving each game a unique strategy to win.
Each player chooses one of 5 unique characters: Louis Blaine, a crooked cop; Rachael Beckman, an in-debt bounty hunter; Floyd 2X3A7C, a Bioroid (a kind of android/cyborg) who is balancing his programming with his interest in humanity and his own attempts at "being human"; Caprice Nisei, a psychic clone who is trying to maintain her sanity and her knowledge of being a clone; and Ray Flint, a private investigator battling his inner demons of being a war veteran and addiction issues.
Players can play Light Cards to give their investigator various bonuses, if they spend 1 Time.
There are also major locations that can help players acquire certain game items (Alibis, Hits, Dropship Passes, etc.).
Players move about the board by use of the vehicle rulers which are unique to each investigator giving them a movement value; by dropship passes which allow players to move anywhere on the board for 1 Time; or by traveling the 5-location Beanstalk which costs 1 Time per location.
Instead of placing evidence when following up a lead, a player can investigate the Conspiracy surrounding the murder.
Each link from one of the four sides of the central Conspiracy piece to a group gives Victory Point bonuses to all players who hold one of the four kinds of Favor pieces, successful Guilt or Innocence outcomes, or Happy or Sad endings to their plot lines.
Higher-value Conspiracy tiles therefore cost a greater number of followed Leads and will not be readily available to players early in the game.
The new location must not be in this player's current "district", must not already have an evidence piece, and must be of the same color-coded building type as where it was first found (civic, religious, residential, business, or nightlife).
The motivation to increase the cost of playing one's card by 1 Shift has to do with easing the cost of an opposite type of card played in the future, by allowing greater room to Shift in the opposite direction.
These events do a number of things, from changing a game mechanic, to putting an extra goal into play, to placing one of the character's acquaintances (a non-player character) on the board to accomplish a special function, or changing the murder situation entirely.
At the end of the game, a murderer is determined by the suspect who has the highest point total of evidence.
Various Victory Points are earned throughout the Conspiracy Puzzle and Plots so you do not necessarily have to get your Guilty hunch right to win the game.
The game is determined by card play, and your ability to accumulate Victory Points in various ways.
In addition, leads are constantly being moved around the board, forcing players to travel between Earth and the Moon and adjusting priorities and strategies.
This may possibly be justified by the cynical cyberpunk game-setting; by the fact that Investigators are credited in their employment for results, not necessarily truthful results; or the fact that the murder case is not the only focus of actions (similar to many police television shows where the personal lives of characters are dealt with as well).
In a similar way, the Conspiracy aspect is abstract and presents no clear plot line as to why the influential groups wanted the murder victim killed.
Possibly the full motivations are unknowable or covered up by outside pressures by these groups on the police force, again in the cyberpunk tradition.