If a Countermeasure card’s Target number is reached, a scoring opportunity can occur as well as certain actions depending on the text on a card. The Discard pile is reshuffled whenever a player does not have enough cards to draw up to the required hand size. After playing cards, a player with three or fewer cards in hand draws two. Three phases define a player’s turn–Play cards, Draw cards, and Score Cards (aka, End of turn).Ī single Tool card is played and any matching Tool cards can also be played. Finally, the Data tokens are shuffled and placed face-down on the table, with one Data token placed face up on the Microdeck corp card and two Data tokens on each of the four remaining Megacorp cards. Six specially-marked Countermeasure cards are shuffled in with three stacks of blue, red, and purple colored countermeasure cards (2 each color) to form a 12-card Countermeasure deck. Four Megacorporation cards are placed in the center of the playing area–one is always the Microdeck card and the other three can be selected randomly.ĭata cards are shuffled and the top three cards are displayed and available for players to win. Each deck is shuffled and players draw up to four cards. The 40 Mark Cubes (20 green/20 blue) are used to track attacks on Countermeasure cards and successful breaches of Megacorporation cards.īoth players begin with an identical 12-card deck and 10 Marker cubes (also called Marks). Countermeasure cards and Megacorporation cards offer up Data tokens (face-up) as additional rewards to a player who defeats a countermeasure and/or wins a Megacorporation card. One side contains the Shadowrun icon and the other side contains one of six different icons (not in equal number). The 21 Data tokens are mixed up and placed face-down in a general pile.
The eight Data cards (blue back) contain special instructions related to scoring at the end of the game plus flavor text. ( What did they use as an encode, something from a cereal box? Blow right by that drek.) All Tool cards allow either a Mark to be Placed or Moved on a Countermeasure card as well as flavor text.
The 24 Tool cards (gold back) represent the software that deckers use to defeat countermeasure and are divided into four colors (purple, red, blue, yellow).
If Winner/Loser isn’t specified, both players perform the action specified on the card. Some cards contain instructions for the Winner or Loser to take when the Countermeasure is defeated. Examples include SubBytes, Stateless Wall, and Proximity Tokens. The 15 Countermeasure cards (green back) are divided into three colors (red, purple, blue, 5x each) and represent the firewalls and software used to obstruct a hacker from gaining access to Paydata. Each Megacorporation card has a Target number (lower left corner) and a Paydata value (lower right corner). The six single-sided Megacorporation cards are the largest cards in the box–dimensions are 3.5″ x 5″, and each contains an image and flavor text for one of six different megacorporations: NeoNet, Evo, Renraku, Microdeck, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, and Aztechnology. Note: all cards are single-sided with the Shadowrun: Zero Day logo on the back.
A single cardboard insert with one channel is large enough to hold all of the following components: The game’s components are stored in a glossy box of size 7.5″ x 5.5″ x 1.75″. Shadowrun: Zero Day is published by Catalyst Game Labs and will be available in late December 2017 with an MSRP of $19.99. Short version: players aren’t going to pick up any real-life hacking skills by playing Shadowrun: Zero Day. The overall theme does put the players in the roles of computer hackers (“Deckers”), but the terminology and tools used by the Deckers are fictional and do not mirror real-life technologies and/or techniques. While Shadowrun novels and the RPG do have some mature themes (violence and horror, for example), this card game is family friendly in terms of both text and imagery on the cards, box, and instruction book. The two-player card game is recommended for ages 13+ and average game time is less than 20 minutes. Set in the Shadowrun universe where magic and technology exist side-by-side with humans, elves, trolls, and even dragons, Shadowrun: Zero Day pits two Deckers (AKA hackers) against one another as they try to steal Paydata from four Megacorporations using zero day attacks-vulnerabilities unknown to the target but ones that will certainly be patched once discovered. Two unauthorized tokens? Looks like another decker is wandering around in this megacorp’s data with me. unauthorized access token: 2 (local token: 1)