Android: Mainframe First Impressions
“When I said I could hack it in my sleep, did you think I was joking?”
~ Chaos Theory (Android: Netrunner)
You are elite cyber-criminals known as runners who are competing for control of a vulnerable bank’s various accounts. At the beginning of the game, you mark your arrival by the placement of your first access point. Then, each turn, you get to take a single action: establish another access point, execute a program, or pass. Your goal is to use the programs at your disposal to secure your access points so that they control as many of Titan’s vulnerable accounts as possible.
Most of the generic programs write pathways between Titan’s various nodes, allowing you to place a blue partition between the nodes on the board. Whenever your partitions seal off a section of the board containing only your access point or access points, they are “secured” and flipped face down. They are no longer vulnerable to your opponents’ programs, and you will score the accounts they control at the end of the game.
Android: Mainframe is another simple fairly abstract game. This is like the classic Dots and Boxes game you played at school where you’re trying to create and control boxes. But in this, you’re trying to create large boxes with sticks that have multiple tokens inside of them.
Actions
On your turn, you either play a card from your hand of 3 special cards that relate to your character, or you play from one of the general cards face up on display or play an Access point token onto the board.
The cards let you play or move Partitions or move and switch Access Points etc Basically, they are there to help you manipulate the board a bit to put things in your favour.
When you close an area that is JUST your Access Points. You flip them face down and that area is now locked. Those Access Points and Partitions making up the closed area cannot be moved for the rest of the game.
Game End
At the end of the game, you score points for each of your closed zones. You multiply the number of Access Points by the Number of Spaces in each zone you control, and the most points win.
Android: Mainframe Summary
It’s a nice simple game. Very mean though with all the moving of bits as you play but it’s quite quick.
You need to make large areas with lots of tokens inside but your opponent is constantly trying to block this off. Of course, you’re blocking them off too. So there is a lot of push and pull when playing, especially in a 2 player game.
When you get a decent point scoring area it is satisfying though!
For an abstract multiplayer game, it’s a good one.
Jesta ThaRogue
