Android: Netrunner - Shut Up & Sit Down

Why You Should Get Into Netrunner in 2022

It’s a big one! In this lengthy videofilm, Tom takes a look at the work of Project NISEI and their version of Android: Netrunner! Is it good? Is it GREAT? Does it stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the original? Find out the answers to some of these questions for the low low cost of just 32 minutes of your life.

This one was a bit of beast, took me forever, and I don’t know what to do with myself now. Enjoy!

Quinns: Good morning. Our top story this week? Shut Up & Sit Down has a new staff writer! Everybody, please give the warmest of welcomes to Ava Foxfort. Ava, will you please step in front of the class and introduce yourself?

Ava Foxfort (they/them): Hi everybody! You may have seen me in the comments or the forums, and I have to say I’m utterly thrilled to be here. Shut Up & Sit Down has been one of my favourite imaginary places for a very long time, and I’m delighted to be part of it.

Quinns: Ava, please kneel. I dub thee… a News Knight of the Realm.

Ava: I guess I’d better go slay some news.

Come on up! Make yourself at home in our twiggy podcast nest, where Paul and Quinns are ready to regurgitate some warmed-up board game knowledge into your waiting beak. This episode features the quietly fabulous tile-laying of Gunkimono. There’s Taj Mahal, the fourth in a fantastic series of beautiful Reiner Knizia remakes. We’ve had a first play of Trade on the Tigris, a new negotiation game from the designer of Space Cadets. Quinns talks about how GKR: Heavy Hitters is almost his favourite game of all time, if it could just be combined somehow with Critical Mass (see podcast #84). Also, like the rest of the internet, we’ve begun playing Root and can’t seem to stop. Finally, the pair chat about a reader mail asking when, and where, we’d consider playing board games for money. Full podcast transcript available here.

Quinns: Have you heard the news? I’ve been playing sad fanfares on my cyber-bugle all weekend. On Friday Fantasy Flight announced that Wizards of the Coast has ended the licensing agreement for Netrunner, which means that Fantasy Flight’s phenomenal living card game Android: Netrunner will be coming to an abrupt end after the next big expansion, Reign and Reverie.

Paul: What?! But Fantasy Flight have only just released the revamped starter set!

Quinns: Yeah. As you’d imagine, the unexpected announcement has left the Netrunner community in a state of shock.

Paul: We know it’s Games News time when we hear the honk of the Games News Freighter (SS Games News) as it makes its way up the Games News channel, to disgorge Games News upon the Games News docks.

Quinns: OH NO A MAN HAS BEEN CRUSHED.

Paul: Such is the weight of Games News and the danger of not taking things easy. We should all relax with Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea (seen above).

Paul: Oh boy, do I feel excited about this week’s Games News! We have just SO MANY interesting and exciting stories. Where do we even begin? With the Huge Humble Bundle? The slew of Kickstarters? Or the new Netrunner core set?

Quinns: Ooh, I’d love to start with the Kickstarter for The Champion of the Wild.

SU&SD is often late to any kind of party, but TCotW is a fantastic game that we can recommend before everybody else. It’s a low-stakes, high-entertainment party game about pitching animals against each other in ridiculous tests of… well, everything from hide and seek to self-stacking. Do you think your animal would win in its category? Is a gorilla good at jousting? Maaaaaybeeee? Go on then, convince me! And enjoy the beautiful, hilarious art while you’re at it.

If you’d like to hear a little more, you can hear us playing it at the very end of podcast #60 and having a whale of a time.

Paul: Matt it’s nearly Friday, how are we only now poking our way into the top 40? Why did we take on this challenge?

Matt: Trains.

Quinns: He’s a goner, Paul. There’s nothing we can do for him now. PRESS FORWARD.

Quinns: Oof, reviews don’t get much tougher than this.

I’ve just finished playing an advance copy of Terminal Directive, the most dramatic expansion that Android: Netrunner has ever received. This big box introduces not just a campaign to the superlative cyberpunk card game, but the dramatic “Legacy” elements that you might remember from Pandemic: Legacy. As the story unfolds players open new packs of cards, but also destroy cards and cover them with stickers.

Best of all, Terminal Directive is a long-awaited stepping stone for new Netrunner players! Previously if you bought the core set and liked it, you then faced the intimidating proposition of simply starting to buy up Netrunner’s forty-two expansion packs. Now you can buy the core set, and then enjoy Terminal Directive’s campaign, and then – erm – begin buying forty-two expansion packs.

There’s just one problem. After being a zealous advocate for this game for years on end, today I don’t play Netrunner anymore. Let’s talk about why.

Quinns: GOOD MORNING everybody! Who’s excited about board games? All of you? Not yet you’re not. Soak up the below news like an high-end paper towel and then we’ll talk.

Fantasy Flight has announced the next big box expansion for the superb Android: Netrunner, and it’s Netrunner Legacy.

The copywriting on the announcement page for Netrunner: Terminal Directive is a bit of a nightmare, but basically anyone who owns a Netrunner core set and the Terminal Directive expansion will be able to play through a narrative campaign of runners vs. corporations. Sealed packs of never-before-seen cards will be opened one after another as a cyberpunk murder mystery plays out, and players will apply new stickers to their faction’s sheet as they win or lose games.

Going into this expansion blind sounds like a delight. Not only do you get the surprise of adding brand new cards to your deck, you then get to surprise your opponent as you unleash them mid-game!

Quinns: Ladies and gentlemen, roll up! It’s time for a new series where we take a look a team SU&SD’s board game collections. Come and see! Be amazed. Be aghast. Be envious. Comment with thought-provoking assertions like “why do you have that game it is bad”.

You guys will have seen my collection in the background of loads of SU&SD videos, but I don’t think you’ve seen the work that goes into it. Come with me today as I perform… a CULL.

But before that, let me show you my collection as it stands. It’s both completely ridiculous and not as ridiculous as you might think.

Read more

Why You Should Get Into Netrunner in 2022

GAMES NEWS! 15/04/19

Podcast #85: Do you have any Fascist Fish?

Games News! 11/06/18

Games News! 12/03/18

Games News! 18/09/2017

SU&SD Take on The Board Game Geek Top 100: 40-21

Review: Android: Netrunner – Terminal Directive

GAMES NEWS! 20/11/16

Feature: A Day in the Life of Quinns’ Game Collection!

Feeds