'running for fun and profit.

netrunning that is.

android: netrunner the card game is an asymmetrical, living card game from fantasy flight games set in a dystopian (is there any other kind?) cyberpunk future where scrappy 'runners hack the corps to discover insidious corporate agendas and steal them for creds, publicity, or just for fun.

the starter box for it contains 134 cards for the corporations,114 cards for the runners, and a metric buttload of tokens for tracking various effects (no surprise there, it is a fantasy flight games product).

as a player, you take on the role of a corporation (of which there are four: haas-bioroid, nbn, jinteki, and weyland consortium) or the role of a runner (either an anarch, criminal, or shaper). each of the seven options all play very differently with regard to the victory conditions of the game, and the rules for deckbuilding allow you to customize the way your role as corp or 'runner plays. i'm sure that future releases will emphasize new corps, new runners, and tons of new tricks for each.

for the novice, ffg's android: netrunner the card game is a revision and re-imagining of netrunner, originally designed by richard garfield (of magic: the gathering fame), and released by wizards of the coast way back in 1996. even though the original game received plenty of critical acclaim, it never took off in the collectible card game community the way that m:tg did.

ffg has made a massive investment in releasing android: netrunner the card game (from here on out at little mens we're going to refer to this one as just "netrunner"). ffg's big push at gencon and the fact that they've added it to their living card game line (along with warhammer: invasion, the lord of the rings, a game of thrones, call of cthulhu, and the upcoming star wars) shows that they're pretty serious about making sure that netrunner is here to stay.

i can see this taking up a lot of my gaming time in the near future...