Hi, fellow Netrunners—Divadus here.
I hope y’all have been enjoying Vantage Point’s release as much as I have and are cooking up all sorts of delightful and/or devilish homebrews. I have been doing this NSG Lead Dev thing for over 7 years now (since the org’s inception!) and it has been an incredible rollercoaster of a journey. I am extremely proud of the products we have created and the progress we have made over the years, both in terms of quality and quantity. However, as my life trajectory ramps up in a variety of ways behind the scenes, my lengthy tenure as head of Development for NSG has come to a close.
In addition to how beautifully rich its theme is, I have always adored Netrunner mechanically, from its potential at the loftiest heights of highly competitive, hypertechnical play to its remarkably charming avenues for deckbuilding creativity at a local hobby store or around a kitchen table. Trying to balance a game around such frequently conflicting player preferences is a real challenge though!
Development is not especially glamorous work, but progressively iterating on a given set from its humble beginnings through to the final, polished product is immensely satisfying. As the Development team, our role is rarely to create entirely novel designs (that’s the field of the terrific Design team), but to iterate on established designs and design space, and determine the viability of given permutations of them through playtesting and workshopping. Even a simple integer bump or minute functionality tweak can sometimes make or break a card, so the pursuit of trying to get cards ‘just right’, while juggling at-times competing design and balance sensibilities, is endlessly demanding and exhilarating. As other members of the team have shared in previous posts, every card we’ve ever published has had its own story—not to mention the many stories that are still in progress!
My overarching design philosophy for games has always been that of elegance in simplicity. Netrunner—like many of the best games—fundamentally revolves around resource management, with credits, clicks, and cards being the game’s essence. Even the most strategically rich and rewarding card necessarily falls within this paradigm and must be balanced accordingly. Consequently, one of my staple approaches to balancing cards has become a longstanding meme within NSG Dev: “but what if ‘gain 1 credit’?” (to the degree that the :dev: emoji on our Discord is just ‘+1{credit}’). I believe that this has left something of a footprint on the game, frequently positive—see Pennyshaver, Loup, various ice—if perhaps less wholesome at times (looking at you, Stegodon).
With me stepping down, Safer has officially taken up the mantle of Development Lead in my stead. In fact, Safer has already taken ownership of various Dev leadership responsibilities, functioning as co-lead for the past two sets.
Safer first joined the Dev team during the development of the Liberation Cycle, and his contributions had a profound impact on the final product, providing numerous valuable suggestions and redirections for card packages the team had been struggling with. His patient dedication to playtesting and refining designs alongside his willingness to completely pivot on an idea should it prove untenable has given us some of the game’s most exciting cards, while helping steer us away from unleashing too much mayhem!
All of which is to say, I am extremely assured in the knowledge that the amazing team we have assembled will be in great hands under Ben’s eminently capable leadership. At this juncture, I am very happy to remain as a member of the Dev team, albeit in more of an advisory role. Netrunner is still my favourite game of all time, and I’m not done with it yet.
P.S. Red Team should have cost 4 okay bye
