How Neon Straits plays
Four to six megacorporations share one city. Each corp is secretly dealt a rival: finish with more capital than that corp and you win. Several players can win; at least one loses. If your rival card names your own corp, you must beat three other corps (two at a four-player table). One rival card may be the Statist, who wins only if threat reaches 25 while they hold at least 25 capital. The last rival card stays facedown under the board.
Setup
Choose your corporation before starting, or explicitly choose a random unclaimed corporation. Each corporation can have one player. A setup card places the starting city components and sets how many turns the first round lasts. The active player starts with 10 capital, the next player clockwise 11, and so on. The first demand card is revealed, and each corp keeps one of two investment cards.
A standard round
Action phase. Each turn uses one asset from the turn track. The active player refreshes by drawing the action cards on their corp sheet; a General draw must be a type not already drawn this refresh. The asset is revealed, and the active player proposes a main offer: one action card from hand or a faceup emergency action. Clockwise, each other player may counter or pass. The first counteroffer is free; each later one replaces the last and costs as many discarded cards as there are faceup cards in the Counteroffer box. If anyone countered, everyone except the two proposers supports one side with facedown cards or abstains. More support wins; ties go to the main offer. The winner resolves their offer and claims the revealed asset. Offers and support cards are discarded; an emergency action returns to its owner, facedown if it won. The active player discards to hand size (five) and passes the token left.
Resolving an action card. Every district the card touches is involved, including districts a component passes through while moving. If an involved district has illness, threat rises by 2 when the card finishes, unless the card says illness does not increase threat. Corp contracts pay only on action cards, except Melange's.
Production. The three districts with androids produce into the shared supply, then their unrest rises one stage (protest, then strike). Strikes and outages stop production; orgcrime stops the primary resource; a development adds one. A Human First unit in an exploited district sends a stable district straight to strike, or causes an outage. Supply tracks stop at their last space: energy 4, consumables 6, tech 8, entertainment 10, credits 10.
Event. The next event raises threat, places new trouble, and sets how many turns the next round lasts. The back of the event deck hints at what kind of trouble is coming.
Demand rounds
The round track runs 1, 2, D, 3, 4, D, 5, 6, D. At each demand round investments are revealed and score, then the supply must meet every target on the demand card or threat rises by the card's penalty. The supply resets, the next demand card is revealed, and each corp keeps one of two new investments. The third demand round ends the game. Sector investments pay nothing unless that resource meets demand.
Threat
Threat rises from events, illness in involved districts, components pushed out of district 10 into The Gateway (+2 each), and failed demand. At 25 the Directorate intervenes and the game ends at once.
Bargaining
You may give capital or assets at any time. Action cards, rivals and investments cannot be traded. Human promises are informal. Binding bot contracts commit support immediately. Non-binding promises charge upfront for later support and may be broken without a refund. Bots remember how you treat them.
The corporations
- Jinteki · Satoshi Hiro, Chairman
Contract · Personal Evolution: When an illness token is removed from a district, gain 2 capital.
Emergency · Mandatory Quarantine: Remove up to 4 illness tokens from the city. Then, place 2 outage tokens in the city. Illness tokens do not increase threat during this action.
- Haas-Bioroid · Cynthia Haas, Director
Contract · Engineering the Future: When 1 or more android tokens are moved, gain 2 capital.
Emergency · Underpaid, Overclocked: Choose up to 2 resources and increase their quantity in the supply by 1. Then, gain 4 capital and place 2 Human First units in the city.
- Globalsec · Lydia Tan, Chief
Contract · The Conflict Solution: When an enemy unit is removed from a district, gain 1 capital.
Emergency · Ruthless Tactics: Remove up to 4 enemy units from the city. Then, increase unrest by 1 stage in 2 districts not in strike or outage.
- NBN · Victoria Jenkins, CEO
Contract · Making News: When unrest decreases, gain 1 capital for each stage it decreased.
Emergency · Sweeps Week: Reduce unrest by up to 4 stages in any districts. Then, place 2 illness tokens in any districts.
- Weyland Consortium · Farid Ahmadi, Public Relations Officer
Contract · Building a Better World: When an outage token is removed from a district, gain 2 capital.
Emergency · Massive Reconstruction: Remove up to 3 outage tokens from the city. Then, place 2 orgcrime units in the city.
- Melange Mining · Yuri Talunik, Owner
Contract · Powering Change: When an event card is resolved, if threat does not increase by at least 2, gain 3 capital.
Emergency · Melange Emergency: Each player may draw 2 action cards of a type of his choice, or 4 cards if he supported this offer, starting with the active player and proceeding clockwise. ⓘ Reconstructed
District gallery · 10 scenes
About this edition
Neon Straits is a Singapore-inspired reimagining of Fantasy Flight Games' New Angeles (James Kniffen, 2016). It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Fantasy Flight Games. All artwork here is original; no card art, board art or logos were copied.
Rules follow FFG's Learn to Play, Rules Reference and FAQ. Card text comes from FFG's published documents and product previews, photographs of cards, and players' posts on BoardGameGeek. Any card that is not exact published text has an information marker explaining how it was sourced.
- From the published game: districts, movement paths, supply limits, the six corporations and their contracts, and five of the six emergency actions.
- Action cards: 19 known designs, all with published text. The box holds 100 action cards, but the number of copies of each design, and whether other designs exist, is not public. This edition splits each type's 20 cards evenly across its known designs.
- Assets: 29 of the 34 are known: 22 from published images, 3 quoted by players (Thomas Haas, Lily Lockwell, Mark Yale), 3 paraphrased (The Fall Guy, Locust Company, Tanaka), and Toshiyuki Sakai adapted for this edition. Sakai draws 10 cards when claimed or stolen; trades and swaps do not trigger this ability. His exact printed wording remains unverified. The other five assets are left out.
- Events: 8 of 16. Setup cards: 5 of 6. Demand cards: 3 of 9. One game uses exactly three demands, so every game here faces the same three in a shuffled order.
- Melange's emergency action is reconstructed from a player's description: like Puff Piece, but 4 cards.
- Investments: of the 12, Energy Sector and Entertainment Sector are published. Consumables, Tech and Credits Sector follow their pattern with inferred numbers. Short Sale and Syndicate Stake are reconstructed from player descriptions. The other five are original stand-ins.
The missing cards change the balance. Bots pursue secret rivals, bargain for support and can sabotage the city; their behavior is a heuristic, not a measure of published-game balance.
