Hacker: The Computer Crime Card Game

I love Hacker for a variety of reasons (the computer industry in-jokes, the civil liberties history, the look and feel, and more), but it is a complicated game to teach. Since I've taught it multiple times and hope to do so again, I've put together a demo kit (to be used with the game itself). It drastically simplifies some elements of Hacker (no need for the rulebook any more!), but there's still a lot left to enjoy. Kit components include

• Patter: 1-pager in glossary format. Read brief introduction to the game to players, adding your own special touches as you choose, then hand out copies for reference during the game.
• Turn Phase Cheat Sheet: 1-pager in psuedo-code lists all possibilities for each phase (well, I took out phreaking and favors for demo simplicity, but you can put them back in). Hand out copies to players for use during game.
• Preconstructed network: The 1-pager provided here would lay out legally if you used it as a template for the actual system cards. Why pre-construct a network? The way the network is constructed afresh each game, making different strategies more or less appropriate for different games, keeps the game fresh for me, but it takes a fair bit of explanation (constructing it initially, players' strategic considerations, adding to it as players draw new system cards), can take up a fair bit of space (important at some cons), and doesn't add that much to a demo game. Fortunately, it's easy to excise: simply remove all Indial and Regular System cards and the "Funding Cut" Special Card from the deck, and provide a preconstructed network. Mine probably works best playing to 9 systems for a demo (not enough easy/medium systems for a higher goal). Printing it on one page may look a little cheesy -- feel free to flash the real system cards to players, use a high-lighter to pretty it up, or hand-draw your own beautiful network.

Other SJG Variants

• Shared Illuminati