Welcome, my beloved runners! I hope your mischief is proving fruitful, and your score area is fuller than Santa’s shipping depot as we come close to wrapping up another year of this wonderful game. The NISEI elves have been busy too, with a lot of those lovely 2019 Q1 kits being posted out already and the last of batch one due to be sent very shortly - in fact as we saw on Reddit , the first have already started arriving!

This week, we have another Community Champion to have a ticker tape parade for, those of you with working memories will recall that we made Kevin Tame a Champion for his work on that logo we now have all over everything... Now the weird thing here is that I remember specifically stating when we started this that nobody in NISEI should get nominated, but after we sent Kevin the mat he only went and joined our Graphic Design team! This means Kevin holds a very special place in NISEI history as the only person to have a desk in NISEI Plaza and a fancy playmat to put on it.

And now, on with the interview...

How did you get into Netrunner?

I bought a core set around 2013 and then never played it. I have a weekly board game night and one night in 2015 only one of my friends showed up. So I was like, “Hey why don’t we give this game a try.” We were immediately hooked and couldn’t stop playing.

Are there any other games you play?

Video Games:

Zelda - Zelda is my favorite video game franchise. I’m still playing Breath of the Wild since it came out and currently have about 800 Korok Seeds.

Mario Odyssey - I literally stood up and gave a standing ovation when I beat it. It was that fun!

Celeste - CodeMarvelous recommended this and it has become one of my favorite platform game.

Rocket League - I’m bad but my kids love to play with me.

Clash Royale - This is a mobile game that is just really fun. I don’t like the way these mobile games make money and addict you but I still think it is a really good game.

Board Games:

Terra Mystica - I really geek out on this game with my friends. We play an online version (https://terra.snellman.net/) and take days in between turns. I’ve built a really robust spreadsheet to help me optimize my play. I love how the game rewards effective long term planning.

The Terra Mystica equivalent of jinteki.net

Agricola and Caverna - Agricola has one of the best mobile board game apps out there. The solo series is really fun. My top score in solo is 106. Even though Cavera doesn’t have a mobile app I think it might be better than Agricola and more refined.

Kevin’s top score for Agricola

Power Grid - I love economic games and the mechanics in Power Grid are great at simulating a real time market.

Pandemic Legacy - Is one of the most enjoyable campaign based games I’ve ever played

Arkham Horror The Card Game - I get excited every time a get a new pack. It’s just a very good game.

Brass and Steam - I love games where you can leverage debt to create a powerful economic engine and these two games emulate that concept really well.

Honestly, I could really list over 50 games that I really enjoy but that would be too much. So I’ve kept the list to the ones that have come to mind.

How did you feel when you saw the announcement from FFG about the official support ending?

I cried and was pretty depressed about it for a few days. I don’t like to think about it.

Kevin’s reaction when he saw the news

What is your favourite thing about the game and/or the community?

Netrunner is the GOAT of games. I’ve played a lot of games and nothing has kept me coming back like Netrunner. I can’t attribute it to just one thing but if I have to it is probably that the game is just amazing. The friends I’ve made as well obviously help in keeping me engaged.

clockwise from top left:

random game with @Tolaasin at an airport - proving you should always carry some decks with you,

some PlaneRunner with Charles Ulveling,

Kevin’s POS team,

and finally the SOCR crew at Magnum Opus)

If you were a runner, which faction would you be in?

I think I want to be Anarch because that feels cooler but I find myself often tinkering with stuff so maybe I’m a Shaper. Is there such thing as a Shapery Anarch?

Kevin’s in-game equivalent, although I think 15 influence is a bit high considering the ability, so maybe I need to get @divadus to nerf him a little!

Least favourite ICE to faceplant?

Anansi kind of sucks but I have come to the realization that I’ve Had Worse is one of the best ways to break it so I’ve gotten use to the pain.

Geist: blue shaper, or a criminal minifaction?

I’ve never played Geist and have no opinions on who or what he is.

If you could unrotate a single card, what would it be?

I was building an Eternal deck this week and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t make my deck legal. I then realized that Friends in High Places was banned even from eternal. To be honest, it is probably for the best but I sure did love playing it against people.

One illegal deck

How did you get started down your artist path?

I’ve always been into making things so when I saw some of the art Alexis Spicer created I said to myself, “I should make some stuff for Netrunner.” It was pretty easy from there. The Artist Colony is a great place for collaboration.

What’s your favourite thing you’ve designed?

I really like the MaxX ID I created.

One very cool MaxX alt - something I’ve got in sticker form, but haven’t found anywhere worthy of it yet!

Who or what are your artistic inspirations?

Olly Moss has done some really rad illustrations. He created a discord server that artists can get feedback on their work from him and from other artist. That has been pretty inspiring to me. Check out his site. http://ollymoss.com/

Where did your ideas for the NISEI logo come from?

It was somewhat of an iterative process. I kept just making things and getting ideas from the #future channel. Basically the themes that I was hearing was infinity and helix. So I started messing around with the letter N. I created various version and kept sharing on the channel and everyone gave great feedback.

Some alternate versions, the last of which you might recognise

The funny thing is that after I created the logo someone mentioned to me that I must have gotten the idea from the Chippendales logo. It is funny how similar they look.

Now you’re part of NISEI, is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to working on?

I’m on the graphic design team and we are having a blast working together. It is a pretty big task to design all new card templates and get all of art together. To be honest the real hero on the team is Patrick Burk. He is the main reason we are going to get all of this stuff done. I’m just glad I can be a part of the process.

And so that’s Kevin, our fifth Community Champion. If you have someone in your area who you think regularly goes above and beyond the call of duty for the game, please feel free to drop me a line on projectnisei@gmail.com with who they are, and what they’ve done to make you so impressed by their work.

Other Business

As you probably expected, we’re still looking for more translators… if you speak multiple languages and are able to volunteer some time for this, we would love to hear from you via this form and we’re always going to be on the hunt for playtesters, if that’s your jam then fill in this survey and we’ll be in touch with you soon.

That’s it from me for another week, join us next week where we’ll be talking about 2019 STORE CHAMPIONSHIPS. I’m very much looking forward to that kicking off, as it means I can spend many of my weekends in Store Champ season playing Netrunner against a large crowd of people.

Until then… you know the drill.