Might As Well Open Your Eyes

March 23, 2015 7:45 PM

Why I Run Netrunner (fantastic Previous post) is a great card game with a small problem--the initial difficulty curve is basically a cliff, with seemingly a thousand different things for newcomers to keep in mind. So developer Martin Brochu, aka Nagnazul, has created a neat little flavorific text-based tutorial for you all. Now you have no more excuse. Enjoy! (Some NSFW language.)
posted by Navelgazer (16 comments total)

Actually I do have excuses: I still gotta play more Trains, and Trains: Rising Sun, and Arctic Scavengers, and I haven't even beat Rune Age solo with any faction yet, and also I just got Friday, and next on my big list of things to spend money on so I feel good about myself for fleeting seconds is Thunderstone and Core Worlds and Eminent Domain, and then on top of all that there's still Mage Knight that needs playing, so, uh, Netrunner is just gonna have to wait in line and then be overlooked when something comes out that I don't have to play $300 worth of catchup with!

(Also, that site is cool as hell.)
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:58 PM on March 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ooooooo. I want to be good at Netrunner. I wish I had the time. I also want to play more Tammany Hall, Filthy Rich, Puerto Rico, Dune, and Archipeligo. And then, when it's all too stressful, I'll relax with Takenoko.
posted by triage_lazarus at 8:21 PM on March 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

my 300 dollars worth of Dominion sets might get lonely if I started playing Netrunner.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:43 PM on March 23, 2015 [7 favorites]

Oooooh, man. Netrunner is fantastic; I spent years avoiding Magic The Gathering because I knew its rarity/randomness mechanic would siphon my bank account dry. Netrunner's much more limited card pool, asymmetric play, and (let's face it, awesome) scifi theme all hit the right buttons. If you're not playing in the tournament scene, you can build solid decks with a much smaller pool of cards, as well.

There's also a fan project to convert the game to a Victorian theme, which fills me with all kinds of happy, though it appears to be slow-moving…
posted by verb at 10:04 PM on March 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

Oh man, this is awesome! Thank you, I've already sent the link to my girlfriend.
posted by Braeburn at 1:41 AM on March 24, 2015

And the prize for the thing least expected when clicking through the link goes to....

Alas, I think the thing I need to get interested in Netrunner is a tutorial and money for a basic set, not a Twine-based stage-setting. Also, I feel there should be some standardized Metafilter warning for pages that unexpectedly play sound.

(I hope this doesn't come across as carping, it's a nice post Navelgazer. I'm just plaid today.)
posted by JHarris at 2:01 AM on March 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've loved Netrunner since its original CCG incarnation, and I very much enjoy the current deckbuilding format in which randomness is less of a factor. My lovely wife enjoys the game too, though the learning curve in reintroducing it to her was frustrating, in that it's difficult to evaluate the various options knowing that some of them are not good ones and not being able to tell. This simulation should be useful, and it's a lot of fun on its own.
posted by Gelatin at 3:23 AM on March 24, 2015

Wait, so there is a play simulation in there, beneath the Twine? Did I give up too early? I would like to learn to play Netrunner, hmm.
posted by JHarris at 4:28 AM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm enjoying this, but I do agree that it's not a very efficient way to design a tutorial, but it's fun to read. Now, if I could just find people in the Providence area who like to play Netrunner, I would be set....
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:35 AM on March 24, 2015

I haven't ever played Netrunner, and when I was playing the Twine, I thought: "When will we get to cards like the FPP said???"...But after playing the Twine and watching the little video where it went through the rules and 3 turns or so, I thought that the Twine was a very clever way to explain the concepts.

That being said, the only way I really play card games is through video game versions of them (e.g., pokemon TCG for gameboy, numerous YuGiOh card games for various nintendo systems). Have the developers also created something like this here?
posted by subversiveasset at 7:20 AM on March 24, 2015

There's no real video game version of Netrunner. There is an implementation of it for OCTGN; it's a bit clunky (although I haven't tried it in a while), but it allows you to play online with other people. There's no AI, though, so if you want something singleplayer the Twine is really all there is.
posted by Mr. Pokeylope at 7:51 AM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't describe this as a tutorial so much as a piece of very entertaining Netrunner-themed interactive fiction. I recommend playing with the sound on, as the music really sets up the atmosphere.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 9:00 AM on March 24, 2015

Yeah, I was just about to post the same...I don't think the author ever calls it a tutorial, not even in the Board Game Geek thread where he announces it.

Having said that, using Twine to create an interactive tutorial for board games is a very intriguing idea.
posted by Ian A.T. at 9:40 AM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, calling it a tutorial was my own choice, because the Twine feels a lot like a video game tutorial level (which then opens up a new, apparently variable "hard mode" that I haven't gotten to dive into quite yet.) I'm not sure how well it would actually work as a tutorial--some of the de-abstractions are great, and help explain what the card is doing, flavor-wise, to make it make more sense. Others would just be confusing to new players, such as the adjusted credits, four-hour blocks, etc. Still, a fun little game that can explain a lot.

It also, I think, puts a lot of the fun emphasis on actually running, which can be intimidating for new players, and the runner can't win without doing it (whereas the corp doesn't care. Part of the reason I think the corp looks way easier to play as than the runner for new players.) It's for this reason that I question setting Kate "Mac" MacCaffrey as the defaul runner rather than Gabe, as Shapers (like Mac) tend to build up big rigs and then run, which exacerbates this n00b habit. Crims (like Gabe) just run from turn one. I honestly think crims are better to learn with.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:21 PM on March 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I can't help but think a Twine introduction to Dominion would be absolutely charming. No one reads Dominion's flavor text, but it's sweetly hilarious.
posted by JHarris at 3:09 PM on March 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Loved the tutorial - based on this post, I went and ordered a copy of Netrunner. Have been wanting to get into the card-based game hobby for a while now, and this seems like the perfect time for it.
posted by zbaco at 8:30 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]