It is the year 21XX.
You are the best hacker in Pacifica Prime. You’ve been scraping pay-data off of corporate servers and scouting the dark corners of the neon-lit matrix since you were old enough to handle your mom’s ancient dvorak keyboard.
No one knows the matrix like you do.
You're finally ready to do one last righteous hack to take down the Royals of Pacifica Prime and make it out alive.
This game is based on the physical card game MATR1X 0VERL0AD by Michael Elliot, which itself was based on Gridcannon by Tom Francis. This digital version was created by Andrew Steele.
The original version of these rules can be found here (published with permission). If you enjoy this game, please consider supporting the original creator by visiting his patreon, or consider sending me a donation!
The goal of this game is to defeat the Royal's firewall cards before they become too powerful to beat, and before you run out of cards to play against them. The draw pile can be found in the lower right corner. Valid moves for the top card of the draw pile are automatically highlighted. Click a highlighted pile to move the card there.
To play, you must line up cards in rows or columns in order to defeat the firewall cards. The game engine will automatically highlight valid placements for you. The value of the two cards closest to the firewall's row or column must add up to the value of the firewall or higher, and then be "triggered" to attack by placing a valid card in the third, farthest-away pile.
An 11 can be beaten with any two cards adding up to at least 11 points, a 12 requires at least 12 points and the two closest cards must be of the same color as the 12, and a 13 must be beaten with two same-suited cards adding up to at least 13 points.
When you draw a firewall, they get placed in one of the outer piles. The game engine will automatically highlight valid placements. They should be placed next to the highest-value same-suited card, if a place is available. If no same-suited space is available, then the highest same-color space should be chosen. If no same-color space is available, then the royal should be placed next to the highest card with an open spot. If two spots are open (like on a corner), you may choose either of the two places.
Cards from Ace to 10 and a single "0" are placed on the nine inner piles, and can only be placed on piles where the top card is the same value or lower than the card to be placed. For example, a 7 can be placed on top of anything from an Ace through a 7, but not on an 8, 9, or 10.
If a 'number' card cannot be placed on an inner pile, it must be added to a firewall as 'ICE' (Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics). For example, if there is no valid place in the inner piles to add a 2, you would then add it to a firewall, which would increase that firewall's difficulty to defeat by two points. An 11 with a 2 would require 13 points to defeat instead of 11. The normal rules about suits and/or color requirements remain the same.
The exception to the normal gameplay rules comes when you have an Ace or a "0". Aces can be played on any pile and 'reset' the pile, causing all of the cards in that pile to move to the bottom of the draw pile. 0's also reset, but must be placed on the lowest-value pile at the time they are drawn. Again, the game engine will automatically highlight valid placements of these cards for you.