Run, Nab it, Run

A late report by James.

The Bracknell Bunch are trying to like Android:Netrunner. It’s certainly rather swish. It’s cyber-cool. It’s mega-corporations and hacking. What’s not to like? One could wear shades and a trenchcoat while playing this game. But it’s not quite clicking with anyone though. ...Yet.

Since they played it last, Chris has studied and re-studied the rules. James prepared by watching the video tutorials a second time. Boy, they’re slick. All throbbing blue laser arrows and sound effects, with a futuristic female voice-over. Presented like that, it gets you gasping for a game. Then you lay it out on the dining table and it’s like when you tried to play Tron down the car park in 1982. With a Frisbee.  To compensate, James made a hacking run arrow, using paper and a blue felt tip. If only his wife would have done the futuristic voice-over. From behind the dining room door. 

Perhaps not entirely fair that, because the game really is supremely well illustrated. It’s just the gameplay. When you think you know all the rules, some cryptic instruction crops up on a card and heads need to be scratched. So this game (third time for Chris, second time for James), James was doing the hacking – all subversive, like. Chris was the corporate giant. James started extremely well. Chris’ servers were about as secure as an Etch-A-Sketch left next to an unattended hammer. James was in and out and it was all rather exciting, as everywhere that James dipped his crafty little cyberpunk fingers, he nabbed a scoring card. He roared into the lead.

But then Chris began to seal things off good and proper. James’ gameplay ground to a halt. While new to this it does seem like you get some cards and think, who in the world would ever use that? Even so, it’s quite exciting to build things up and during the game, the whole thing almost clicked. Almost.

It was quite the stalemate for a while, as James’ attacks were fended off. His early success with the ‘sneakdoor beta program’ had been shored up by Chris’ Hadrian’s Wall barrier. You do find yourself slowly immersed in the game’s world. At first you feel silly saying you’re ‘rezzing your ice’. But it seems a bit arsey not to say it. Then you’re in the zone, spouting all the jargon. But some of the game mechanics don’t seem to produce the fireworks you hope for. Some results feel like damp squibs. And when James won, his first thought was merely, “Oh, right then.”

But somehow, both players do fancy another go.   

James 9, Chris 4.

Next, Agricola. Now, to be politically correct, James seems to be Agricola-challenged. To be blunt, he’s crap at it. But he does enjoy it. This time, he mapped out a game-plan  that would amass a frenzy of bonus points at the end of the game, mostly through occupations. As the game rocketed to its conclusion, James’ master-plan hinged upon Chris not using the occupation space in the last round...

Chris used the occupation space in the last round. James’ recruitment extravaganza (worth a game-winning seven points in his mind) was blocked, so he planted a bit of grain instead. For three points.

But James had been utterly deluded. Because Chris’ little-bit-of-everything tactics  won him the game by a mile. Looking back, James was never really in the running. Plus, Chris kept nicking all the stone. It’s like he wanted James to lose.

Chris 46, James 31.   

Bad case of the runs.

Last Wednesday Paul accepted my call to arriving a little earlier to try out Netrunner. After my inconclusive opening session with James I was keen to have another stab with the rules still fresh in my mind and that new game excitement still bubbling away. In the days since playing James I had been swotting up on the rules and trawling the forums to gain clarification on some aspects that had befuddled me.

Paul absorbed the rules impressively quick although an open hand set of turns was necessary to embed the process. I took the role of the Corporation as I felt it was a little trickier to handle first time round. My one game experience showed as Paul understandably hesitated over which cards to lay however the battle lines slowly drew up and turns rotated faster.

By now Paul was making frequent runs to search for my elusive agendas and coming away with nothing or only information on what my next cards were. Still I was getting stumped by exactly what some cards where telling us. In some cases it became clear, after a discussion, the appropriate action to take, others we left to be clarified later. In the meantime I was scoring agendas and had built a formidable defence. However, one area which I had left weakly covered was my deck of draw cards (R&D). Paul played an event card which allowed him to access the three top most cards on my deck on completion of a successful run. Swatting aside my flimsy protection he accessed the deck and revealed two agenda cards worth 3 points each. We were tied at six points each, the next score out would win the game. Two turns later I had it. 8 - 6.

The game was still missing something. Paul felt that a lot of his cards were too weak or too specific to be of any use. On my second game I still felt that it was crying out for a list of card explanations. 

I'm going to give it one more go to see if I can get to grips with it. Last week I was excited to play again but after my second game a lot of my enthusiasm has wained.

We then had 30 minutes to squeeze a game in before the kids turned up so we opted for little Agricola. Paul's rustiness on this game was greater than mine coupled with a nasty tactic I employed where I nicked the extra expansion field and compacted his farm.

Chris - 50 odd

Paul - 40 odd.

After dinner had been eaten and children packed off to bed, James arrived ready to play our second instalment of Taj Mahal. This one was another nail biter with the scoring positions remaining close all game. James even admitted toward the end that he was actually pretty tense as we went into the final round. However James it was who had managed his hand, done the maths and made the special cards work for him the best at the end trotting out the winner.

James - 54

Chris - 47

Paul - 43

Paul was then offered the choice of games to play next due to his third place in Taj Mahal (Which we might make a thing). He selected a strong favourite of his Alhambra and showed why by wiping the floor with both of us. Scoring a wall of twenty plus in each scoring round is never a bad thing. I did my usual trick of walling myself in, using up vital moves in rearranging the tiles and James had one of those games where he just couldn't get started.

Paul - 178

Chris - 128

James - 98

Intruder Alert!

Wednesday night saw James and myself take on one of the more inaccessible games around Android:Netrunner. On reading many reviews and speaking to the guys in the shop I knew that the game was unapologetically theme heavy and awkward to learn. Admittedly James and I probably aren't its target demographic as it is a Living Card Game akin to Magic (But not a CCG - Big difference apparently!) but almost every review and person I've spoken to says it's worth the learning curve.

It is set in a Blade Runner style (The word dystopian gets used a lot) future where Corporations are the real powers and Hackers known as Runners are their sworn enemies. It's a strict two player game where one side plays the Corporation and the other a Runner. Corporations are essentially defending their servers from attack by Runners and Runners are trying to gain access to those servers to steal information. The prime winning margin are things called Agendas. The Corporation installs them into their servers and tries to Advance them (Pay for them) and thus they can be scored. Conversely the Runner tries to steal them from the servers using programs that cut through the Corporations defences.

Still with me? The language gets a lot worse. After you've used a few clicks and spent some credits to rez your ICE or ICE breaker you feel like genuine nerd.

A dystopian landscape

The Final Flight Fantasy website has some really natty videos to help train you to play which we both watched ahead of the evening but after 5 minutes of me trying to explain the rules James felt his soul leaving his body and pleaded that we launch straight into it and treat the start as a training game.

When playing these more complex systems, getting a handle on what is a good move is quite impossible. Therefore we dove straight in placing down impressive looking cards and talking the talk. Our game play did speed up although a rule referral was never far away and irritatingly the rule book didn't supply a break down of the individual cards to aid comprehension.

Action tracker - thats clicks to you

In the end the result was a narrow win for me as the Runner. 7 Agenda points to 6, 7 being the winning margin. Chatting afterwards we agreed that the game didn't really click with us. We couldn't generate the tension that is supposed to be the best part of the game. I had a pretty powerful card and it seemed to rip through James' defences if I had enough money. We were left pondering whether we had played it entirely correctly.

We decided to give it another chance the next time we have a games evening because there is a cool game in there somewhere, we just need to see if we can find it.