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Welcome to a world of unimaginable wealth and rampant inequality, a world where monolithic corporations act as a law unto themselves, where automation and technological progress threaten to undermine the very foundations of society, and where frightened, forgotten, and furious citizens turn in droves towards political extremism.

This is Fantasy Flight's dystopian Android universe. While you could be forgiven for mistaking it for the world of 2017, it’s actually a cyberpunk setting best known as the backdrop for the card game Android: Netrunner, which pits elite hackers against corporate security systems.

Over the years, though, other titles besides Netrunner have been set in this world of cybercrime and corporate excess, and New Angeles, from designer James Kniffen (Forbidden Stars, Star Wars: Armada), is the latest. The game casts you and your friends as heads of rival mega-corporations battling for power, prestige, and profit in the titular city. New Angeles is a sprawling metropolis that’s home to the Beanstalk, a gargantuan space elevator that connects the Earth with lunar mining bases. It’s also a designated “special commerce zone,” where businesses operate free from almost all government interference—and thus the perfect place for an unscrupulous shark to make a couple million credits.

To emerge victorious in New Angeles, you have to defeat a corporate rival chosen randomly and secretly from among your fellow players. You’ll aim to finish the game with more capital—or victory points—than this rival, meaning that multiple players can win. And while a sharp and savvy executive can find plenty of ways to generate cash, that’s not the game’s only concern. Almost every action you take has an effect on the broader city, sometimes sparking civil unrest and fueling resentment among the populace. Allow dissent to get out of control and the US government will step in to impose—shudder!—market regulation, ending the game in a loss for all players.

Game details Designer: James Kniffen

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Players: 4-6

Age: 14+

Playing time: 2 - 4 hours

Price: $72.56 ( James KniffenFantasy Flight Games4-614+2 - 4 hours: $72.56 ( Amazon ) / ~£45 ( Amazon

That’s the 30,000-foot view of New Angeles, where weighing profits against populist outrage is a constant concern. While the game is ruthlessly, unabashedly competitive, it also comes with a huge element of reluctant cooperation.

Zoom in and you start to see how effective cooperation is. The game revolves around manipulating the city’s various districts. Each round sees neighborhoods produce different resources—consumables, tech, entertainment, energy, or credits. You’ll need to produce different amounts of each to meet consumer demand at various points in the game. Failing to do so will dramatically increase unrest. But keeping districts productive is a challenge. For one thing, they only generate resources if android laborers are present at the end of a round. With your robot supply limited, you have to work with rivals to deploy bots judiciously.

But robotic workers are themselves a source of discontent. Every time you exploit a neighborhood for resources, you spark protests, which shut down production until you find a way to deal with them. And you still have to contend with all the other threats, like disease outbreaks, power outages, political agitators, and organised criminal elements.

New Angeles gives you a lot to keep up with, and it’s made harder still by how you and your rivals have to coordinate in order to keep the city productive and profitable. You all start the game with a hand of action cards that give you a range of ways to interact with the board. These come in different varieties, and the game’s various corporations have access to different types. The Jinteki biotech conglomerate specializes in actions that cure disease. The Haas Bioroid Company excels at deploying android workers to the areas of the city where they’re needed. The NBN media syndicate can use its influence to calm disquiet.

On your turn, you propose an action card from your hand; if everyone else agrees that your card is the best way to deal with the current situation, it will be enacted. What’s more likely, though, is that another player will put forward a suggestion of their own, and you’ll have to vote as a group on which proposal should go ahead.