Break the Ice! (A Review of Android: Netrunner)

Many years ago, a fellow named Richard Garfield created a card game that found its way into the homes of millions of people and has since continued to grow and expand and thrive.  It is the game that keeps many a game store afloat, it has tournaments worldwide, and it has kept a huge following of players since its inception.

Netrunner is not that game.  But, shortly after Magic: the Gathering, Mr. Garfield went on to create a number of other games, and one of those games was most definitely Netrunner. Alas, it did not achieve the popularity of Magic.

Fast forward a few decades later.  Fantasy Flight Games, seeking to expand its complex and incredibly geek-friendly Android universe, acquired the rights to Netrunner and published it as a revamped, re-themed "LCG" called Android: Netrunner. 

Here is my review.

News Bits: 8/13/2012

This week is GenCon, so that's the biggest news. If you're not going (like me), you can live vicariously through those who are. And you can be sure that, come next Monday, I'll have the juiciest tidbits ready for your perusal, with my usual comments, of course.

Oh, and if you will be at GenCon, be sure to track down chief dragon slayer @Futurewolfie...if he isn't too busy doing all the tasks I've assigned to him.

Now: the news.

Dominion, More Dominion, and Even More Dominion
Again, I make no pretense of impartiality here: I love Donald X's design. I think it's fantastic. So I was especially excited when he released these five previews of Dark Ages (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)--with another 26 cards awaiting discovery at GenCon! But that's only one Dominion announcement. The other centers on third-party Dominion apps and websites. As of August 22, all these will close down. (You can see one such announcement on Board Game Arena and another on Isotropic.) On the positive side, the official Dominion app (and online implementation) will be released August 16 for iOS and Android. Details are a bit scant now, but it seems that users will be able to play the base game for free, with additional expansions available as in-app purchases. And according to DXV on BGG, playing with expansions will require only one player to have purchased it. All of this, depending on in-app prices, seems like a pretty good deal to me, and I am super stoked about this.

News Bits: 7/23/2012

Resisting Expansions Is Futile
In what came as some of the best gaming news of the week, I learned that The Resistance will soon be getting a full expansion treatment from Indie Boards & Cards. The details at this point are hazy (and mostly just referenced in buried threads on Board Game Geek), but it seems the expansion will add more mechanics and not just more plot cards. According to Indie Boards & Cards, this expansion will be going up on Kickstarter in the near future. (If this news means nothing to you, by all means, read our review of The Resistance and then go buy a copy--you won't regret it.) (HT: Theology of Games)