BECOMING A NEON GOD IN 6 EASY STEPS...

It’s the future year of 2009, and blurpin’ ain’t how it used to blurp.

You’re a little fish in a fluorescent sea, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. The world’s gone corporate and sanitized, but that just means there’s more demand for that black mark merch humanity craves. So pull your gang together and carve some territory out of the neon-soaked nighttime of downtown.

When the uptowns come looking for sin, you’ll get ‘em what they need.

But you aren’t alone out there. The shadows are swollen with brute joovs lookin’ to take what’s yours. They’ll kill your best yoots, get your customers dusted, and steal your blocks. You can’t let that happen kid. The world may not think much of you, but in the back alley glow of the neon night, you can be a god. And I’m here to teach you how, in 6 easy steps!

Step 1: Recruit the Finest Disillusioned Ne’er-Do-Wells

You need dirty boys and girls with big brains, bloody hands, and a serious lack of angels on their shoulders. Bargains are cool, but watch they don’t shiv your nethers when you sleep.

When you are trying to build a gang, the first thing you need is gangsters. Gangsters are represented in Neon Gods as cards in your deck. You’ll start off with some basic grunts, but you’ll have plenty of opportunities to recruit more colorful gangsters into your deck. Gangsters are recruited off the recruitment board, where the longer they’ve been on the market, the fewer creds you’ll need to pay them to join up. When recruiting a gangster it enters your ever-cycling deck and, while in your hand, can be played for an effect or can be played into battle.

Step 2: Get up to Shenanigans

No one gives two blurps to a sick gramps who wiggles his cudge. What’s this, 1999? I mean, who loves a gang who can’t feather fluff when draining uptowns? Paint your blocks, steal toys, and do it with some flair. And when all else fails, put some owls up some butts, you know?

Being a true gangster is first and foremost about shenanigans. I mean, how are you going to get any blurp (a term which is both slang for legendary-bad-ass-cred and a swear) if your shenanigans game isn’t on point? In addition to gangsters, the recruitment deck is also going to be spitting out event cards. These are paid for in the same way as gang members, and allow for a variety of fun one-time tricks and effects.

Step 3: Hustle

Those uptown corpies greet the night with a thirst, so what’re you quenching it with? Give ‘em some clubs to bounce it. A couple squeeze shacks to feel naughty. And you know they’re on that medicine quick trip so make their Christmas powdery white.

Building your gangster empire requires, well… building. This is represented in Neon Gods with the ‘work’ action and often involves physically building a… building. You can build an impromptu factory and work at that factory to create valuable ‘product’ that you can sell. You can make your territory more defensible by building watchtowers.

You can even just build monuments to yourself, which is blurpin’ blurp as blurp.

Step 4: Fight for What is Yours

When junk joovs creep your blocks, they gotta leave with their teeth in their paws. But I don’t seriously have to tell you that, do I? And only a Queasy Steve just plays defense. Take those streets, and make bad biz your biz. The best merch is merch you didn’t have to make yourself.

 You’ll want to hold and take territory in this game. It gives you places to build your illicit chem labs, your giant neon-light statues of yourself and most importantly it gets you blurp, and blurp is how you win. Holding and taking territory sometimes means fighting. In game terms, a fight goes down like this:

1. Play up to 3 gang members into the battle.
2. Roll the dice provided by those gang members.
3. Count up the number of hits on your dice and add 1 to that number for every figure you’ve got in the contested territory and/or v in adjacent territories.

Your opponent will simultaneously be doing the same three steps, whichever of you has the higher result wins the battle. The losing player’s figures get bumped from the space back to their home base.

Step 5: Look out for Andys Blurpin’ Andys, man. I can’t even.

Black markets and gang wars destabilize the economy. Your corporate overlords aren’t into that, so they send out the Andys. Andys are the android police force, and they’re a hassle. So, you’ll have to fight them too.

Step 6: Profit

It’s fun to blast heads and get in on the robo party dance trip, but at the end of the day you need a profitable portfolio of diverse assets, with flexible investments allowing for at least some liquidity. Ha ha, nah, I’m just playing kid! You gotta get that blurp!

Ultimately you are trying to get blurp, and the three daylight phases of the game is when most of your blurp will be tallied. You’ll get blurp for holding territory, especially territory with monuments or skyscrapers.

And you’ll be able to earn some blurp during the daylight phase by throwing some money around.

The world’s a jacked kaleidoscope, and it’ll buzz your nog quicker than free merch. But these six rules will keep your head straight and get you blurpin’. Tat them on your chest so you can spot them in the bathroom for the quick tip.