Android: Netrunner

Humanity has spread its wings and taken trade to the far reaches of the solar system, having colonized the Moon and Mars. Visionary corporations created braintaping techniques that have led to the development of lifelike artificial intelligence. But as these massive corporations guard their intellectual property on the network behind layers of ice, netrunners seek to expose their secrets, for ideological reasons or for profit.

Corporations seek to score agendas by advancing them. Doing so takes time and credits. To buy the time and earn the credits they need, they must secure their servers and data forts with “ice”. These security programs come in different varieties, from simple barriers, to code gates and aggressive sentries. They serve as the corporation’s virtual eyes, ears, and machine guns on the sprawling information superhighways of the network.

In turn, runners need to spend their time and credits acquiring a sufficient wealth of resources, purchasing the necessary hardware, and developing suitably powerful ice-breaker programs to hack past corporate security measures. Their jobs are always a little desperate, driven by tight timelines, and shrouded in mystery. When a runner jacks-in and starts a run at a corporate server, he risks having his best programs trashed or being caught by a trace program and left vulnerable to corporate countermeasures. It’s not uncommon for an unprepared runner to fail to bypass a nasty sentry and suffer massive brain damage as a result. Even if a runner gets through a data fort’s defenses, there’s no telling what it holds. Sometimes, the runner finds something of value. Sometimes, the best he can do is work to trash whatever the corporation was developing.

The first player to seven points wins the game, but not likely before he suffers some brain damage or bad publicity.

# of Players: 2

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Difficulty to learn: Moderate to Difficult

Library Catalog Record: We’re sorry; this game is somebody’s personal copy, so the library does not currently own a copy of this game. If you’d like to see this game or more like it in the library, let us know!

Pandemic

Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks.

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spread beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, humanity is saved…this time.

# of Players: 2 – 4

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Difficulty to learn: Moderate

Library Catalog Record: (Forthcoming)

Ticket to Ride

All Aboard! (Choo Choo!)

Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure game. Players collect train cards that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.

# of Players: 2 – 5

Playing Time: 45 minutes

Difficulty to learn: Easy

Library Catalog Record: (Forthcoming)