New Angeles – New Game About the Undercover Intrigues of Corporations
By Cat with the Key
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Published a week ago
Welcome to HA, a city run entirely by corporations. The 10 large zones on three tiers are generously packed with bandits and quarantine zones, robots that steal jobs from humans and of course production facilities. Players will have to take on the role of 4-6 corporations that promised to fulfill the city's needs for all sorts of energy and entertainment, but on the other hand did not promise a particular person happiness. What does that mean? Yes, that there is a stress meter hanging on the city, and as soon as it fills up, all players will lose, and until then, each of the players will basically pull the blanket on themselves, covering themselves with common interests.
“What exactly is there to do?” - the intrigued gray cardinal asks me. You won't believe it, make suggestions for city improvements and vote on them. It doesn't sound too interesting, but trust me, with six people, it's a completely unstoppable political carnage.
Players get a corporation and an enemy, at the end of the game they must be higher than the enemy in points, meaning multiple players can equally win at once. Players get points for the corporation's actions: if you are a bio-tech, you grow when you cure diseases, and if you are a robo-tech, you grow when you move robots around the city. Each player has proposal cards in hand and can make a basic proposal on their turn: “I propose to cure two diseases!” - says the bio-tech corporation and explains that the diseases will ruin the city, but the fact that he will get points on his hand tries to keep silent. The other players can make a counter-proposal. “No, brother, diseases are bad, but it is better to move the robots to where there are more resources” - responds, suddenly, the corporation ‘safe’ which actually gets points for killing bandits, but his proposal immediately catches the support of the “robot-corp”. Why the sudden generosity from the “safe”? There could be several possibilities.
First, players all have to collectively mine a certain amount of resources in a cycle or everyone loses, so there are objectively useful steps for everyone. Second, a “safe player” can simply play against a “bio-tech”. Thirdly, actions can be simple “remove one disease”, and there are more massive “move three robots, but put two bandits on the map”, and it turns out that the security corporation is blowing dust in everyone's eyes with a “common agenda”, but generates bandits on the table, for which it will get points later.
So the first player has made a Main Motion, another player has made a Counter Motion, and now the 4 remaining players vote their action cards for who wins, and the politics begin. “Vote for me, ‘robo-corp’, I'll get you two points with this action” is the simplest form. Depending on the sneakiness of the players, I've seen stories as far as “I won't interfere with you, and you'll give me a bonus next turn, which I'll raise points for both of us”. As a result, the game has two important qualities: minimal waiting time for your turn and crazy replayability.
If you've played any “Ancient Terror” or, may the Emperor forgive your soul, Twilight Imperium, you've probably experienced the fact that between two of your moves can be 20-30 minutes and all this time you can chew the snot and watch the development of the game, which, of course, can be interesting, but often causes drowsiness. Forget it, here every sentence is a reason to bargain and make short alliances, and every decision is a time to speculate about the motives and plans of the players. As a result, each player is maximally active not only on his turn, but also on every other player's round.
This is not just a review. This is a love letter to chaos, to timing, to the eternal struggle of bird versus machine. Long may the chicken run.
The replayability is even more fun: for starters, it's worth mentioning that the primary arrangement of problems on the table is variable. In addition, I would like to remind you that each player plays not against the best player on the table, but against someone in particular, which has a fruitful effect on the number of conflicts in the game. It is also worth adding that each winning proposal gives its organizer a bonus, which can be of little importance, for example, more cards in your hand, or it can be absolutely fatal - the next vote is meaningless and only you decide how everything ends.
And now it's time for the cherry on the cake, because there's another important character I haven't mentioned - the Confederalist. His task is to bring the city to a complete conflagration, after which the state will regain control of the city, and he will get the title of governor, well, that is throwing all the players off the sag. Yes, to exchange one point of stress to the whole city for a couple of points of victory is not a sentence, and it doesn't sound very scary, but imagine that there are six smart people like you at the table, each of them thinks that “we won't lose at all”. At the same time, stress is accumulated for failures of common goals, for the trigger of diseases on the table, and at the stage of generating problems every few votes. That is, the possibility of failure is not illusory.
I've seen too many situations that look like this: the last round, the city seems to be halfway to losing and then the confederalist does some clever maneuver with his accumulated bonuses, like he blocks the vote and his proposal wins, not what everyone voted for, and so the robots move to the wrong place and produce slag and at the same time provoke disease, so that the stress suddenly rises not a safe step or two ahead, but a good 10-15, and everyone is dumbfounded at the total loss.