ABSOLUTE ASCENDANCY

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Black Metro

Welcome to Black Metro, a chaotic and dystopian city entrenched in a science-fiction setting. The Black Metro universe currently consists of a board game and book.

Lore

Black Metro is an independent city at odds with the rising empire. It is governed by one who has the title of Overlord. Might is right but not to the extent of blatant physical violence. After all, there would be no purpose governing a city if all of its subjects were dead! One could say that the city is ruled with a loose, iron fist. A controlled chaos if you will.

Despite the seemingly imposing nature of the city and its inhabitants, it is not a rundown place. On the contrary, there is ample opportunity to rise to power. But only for those ambitious and daring enough to brave their way through whatever stands against them; be that openly or from within the shadows.

The current Overlord of Black Metro intends to vacate his seat of power. Therefore there is an opportunity for a worthy individual to take the mantle and rule over the city. To find a successor, a challenge has been issued to potential candidates.

Game

Overview

Black Metro is a strategic area control game where players battle each other to amass the most power and become the next ruler of the dark city. Gather resources to research powerful technologies, build fortifications and upgrade units. Control districts through military strength and dominate your opponents. Gain massive power through syndicate support and mission objectives.

Features

Workers have dual use: Winning spaces and using spaces
Winning spaces prevents other players from fully using them
Spread workers to use more spaces or consolidate for control
Powerful technologies to ‘mix and match’ playstyles
Minimal tokens for ease of gameplay management

Gameplay

Each of the six game rounds has the following four phases.

1. Assignment Phase: This first phase is where the ‘Heart and Soul’ of Black Metro’s design lies. Players will assign their personnel to districts in preparation for dominance and resolution. The rule is that a player cannot reinforce districts which already contain their personnel, but may assign as many personnel as they wish to a specific district when they initially assign their personnel to that specific district.

2. Dominance Phase: A quick, deterministic combat system takes place, where the player with the most strength at each district, dominates those districts and acquires power for doing so. Any losing players at those districts suffer strain as a consequence.

3. Resolution Phase: Players then resolve districts, allowing them to utilise the effects of districts which contain their personnel. If there is a dominating player at a district, then the losing players at that district may only resolve the first effect of that district. Otherwise, all players with personnel at a district may resolve both effects of the district.

4. Standby Phase: A clean-up administrative operation in preparation for the next game round. Players can receive backing from public objectives known as the Syndicates during this phase, allowing players to acquire more power before the next game round commences.

Gameflow

What typically ends up happening in a game of Black Metro is that the early rounds sees players spreading their personnel far and wide to utilise as many district’s abilities as possible. In later rounds, players need to start considering assigning more personnel (and therefore strength) to districts and bunching up their forces to increase resiliency against other player’s personnel; thereby utilising less districts overall but increasing the chances of being able to use the districts where they have bunched up their personnel.

Players must also consider the sequencing of their personnel assignments. Remember, districts cannot be reinforced with personnel, once personnel has been assigned. A player’s early assignments are therefore more exposed to being opposed than later assignments.

In this manner, as the game progresses, strength becomes increasingly important and the utilisation of districts diminishes, in a fairly organic manner.

Victory

Because Black Metro is akin to a sandbox game, there are various pathways a player can take to ultimately claim victory. Players acquire power throughout the game by dominating districts, fulfilling missions and receiving syndicate backings. Players acquire power at the end of the game based on their total strength, number of researched technologies and stocked resources. Depending on a player’s play style, the ratio of where their power comes from, will vary.

Reviews

“It is hard to say in very simple terms exactly what kind of game Black Metro is, because it incorporates different elements that combine to make the whole experience something with its own flavour, and greater than a simply rehashed sum of the parts. There is worker placement, area control, resource management and a few other things besides, which sounds like a recipe for a multi-layered headache, but actually everything comes together in a really solid and satisfying way.”

– Nicholas O’Neill

“This is a deep, thinky game with straightforward rules and a fine tuned gameplay that flows intrinsically.”

-Ty Napier

“It’s an awesome blend of worker placement and area control which really makes you consider more where to place your units.”

-Dizz (BoardGameFanatic)

Book

Black Metro – The Successor is a dystopian sci-fi novella set in an intriguing dark city, with an engaging action-driven plot where the protagonist is motivated by validation. It explores themes such as:

The advancement of technology and its implications on warfare
Acknowledging weakness and responding to it constructively
The contrasting of science and the profound
The perception of strength of individuals and global powers
The concept of change and where it should originate to better the world

Testimonials

“So I picked up your book yesterday and ended up reading it all! Really enjoyable read and very well written. It was quite an interesting dynamic because I know you (and a lot of your personality comes across) and have played the game. Like in a good way though, I felt even more immersed in the storyline. Really awesome Emesh. And can’t wait to read the next instalment.”

-Matthew Hooper

“Finished your book and really enjoyed it. Very impressive Emesh and of course a great lead into the next instalment where the real war kicks off I expect. It was a strange thing reading it and then occasionally going … hmm wonder what he’s thinking and then going, but hold on a minute I know this author. Well done.”

-Ciaran Mitchell