Happy 24th Birthday Hackers (Film) - A look at board games with a computer hacker theme

September 15, 1995, 24 years ago today the movie Hackers hit the theatres. I got to see this with a pastor friend of mine in Arkansas I believe it was. It was a fun movie. Not a huge blockbuster but fun. It was my second movie I bought on DVD. I've seen it quite a bit and even as I got older there are a lot of plot holes and suspension of disbelief that has to go into the writing behind the film. It’s one of those films that I just enjoy for the fun of it.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, Hackers features Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Matthew Lillard. A gifted teenager and his hacker friends are framed for a virus that is attacking a major corporation. They use their talents with computers throughout the story to find the real culprit and prove their innocence. The movie is PG-13 and does contain language, and brief nudity.

There are a few games out there that have the "Hacker" theme.

The closest game I have found to a theme that matches with the film is a The Hackers Guild from Games by Ray. It’s a cooperative game for two to four players. Players are going after Monolith Global’s data center. Players add dice to their dice pool, acquire tools and powerups that make their jobs easier.

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Renegade by Victory Point Games is an abstract thematic euro style deck-building game for one to five players. Players are Deckers hacking into networks while surviving countermeasures. You will move across partitions and try to take control of the network. Players will work together with their fellow Deckers to accomplish victory or defeat!

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Steve Jackson Games put out a game called Hacker The Computer Crime Card Game. Inspired by a secret service raid of the Steve Jackson offices on March 1, 1990. There’s an interesting background behind this game that is interesting to read on. http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ Hacker The Computer Crime Card Game has two to six players play cards, upgrade their hacking tools, and break into other systems avoiding the ICE and law enforcement raids to gain root access for the win.

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Hacker Tracker is produced by IDEALogistics LLC. Two to four players will use hand management and set collecting in order to progress through the game. Players are on the hunt for cyber criminals. This one has a low score on Board Game Geek but definitely looks interesting to play.

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League of Hackers is produced by Moaideas Game Design. Two to four players lead a team of hackers into an arena of networks. It is a point grab game where your actions will generate points. The person with the most points at the end of 3 rounds wins.

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A classic hacker themed game is Android: Netrunner. Produced by Fantasy Flight Games Android: Netrunner is a cyberpunk-themed living card game for two players. One player plays as the corporations seeking to score agendas throughout the game. The other player is a runner trying to acquire resources necessary to hack through corporate security measures.

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Upon further searching I found the “ThinkFun Hacker Cybersecurity Coding Game” I was surprised to learn about this game. The game is a puzzle game that features 120 coding puzzles to teach logic, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual perception. I have not personally played this one but after doing some research on it I will definitely be putting this on my list of games to get and play with my 8-year-old.

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So there it is, some board games with the computer hacker theme. Have you seen the Hackers movie? what are your thoughts on it? Do you enjoy games with this kind of a theme?

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Who am I? Joe DeMarco a single father, freelance writer, and software quality assurance analyst by my day job. I am a big-time gamer, and really enjoy checking out all kinds of games available. Putting my curiosity to the app store I find random games to check out. ![Joe.jpg]()