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Nexus is a Hip Pocket Game by James Ernest.
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
Nexus comes with:
Cards: The cards are medium-thick, printed blue & white. Each card shows rods extending off the edge of the card, one on each card edge; on a card, each rod is also connected to a node, which either end a rod, or else connect it up to another rod.
The cards are plain, though fairly attractive, and easy to use.
Rulebook: The rulebook is a four-fold black & white sheet. There are actually only two pages of instructions, plus one illustrative example. I stumbled over a couple of the rules, which I had to reread, but other than that the rulebook was fine.
Other Components: You'll also need approximately 20 markers for up to four players. I used the Cheapass microchips (though glass stones would probably have been more evocative). You'll also need some way to keep score, up to 10 points; I used the back of a receipt and a pen.
Overall, I found the components fairly average, though they're well worth the price; I give the game a solid "3" out of "5" for Style: average.
The Gameplay
The object of Nexus is to gain control of the most valuable nexuses.
The Cards: As mentioned above, each card shows two elements: rods, which extend off all four edges, and nodes, which either end rods or connect them to others. A "nexus" in this game is a closed set of rods & nexuses, which means that every rod ends in a node, and no open rods from that self-contained nexus are extending off the edges of cards.
During the game, markers will be placed on the nodes of a nexus to mark control.
Setup: Each player takes the markers for his color; the first Nexus card is placed in the middle of the table, face-up.
Order of Play: Each player takes the following actions on his turn:
- Play a Card
- Score a Nexus
- Place a Stone
Play a Card: The active player draws a card from the deck, then places it on the board. New cards must be adjacent to at least one existing card, and they must be placed in a "basketweave" pattern, meaning that every other card is laid either horizontal or vertical.
 Score a Nexus: If any nexuses were closed, they're now scored.
A nexus is valued at the sum of the value of all its unoccupied nodes; an individual node is worth from 1-4 points, depending on the number of rods connecting to the node (1-4, of course). Nodes are occupied if they contain a marker, in which case that node adds nothing to the value of the nexus.
A nexus is scored by the player who controls the highest value of occupied nodes in that nexus (with valuation being determined just as with scoring: one point per rod connecting to a node); if there's a tie, no one scores.
(Note that the above outlines a clear trade-off: if you increase your chance of winning a nexus, by placing a marker on a high-value node, you also decrease the value of that nexus.)
Place A Stone: Finally, you can place one marker in any empty node of any open nexus (not only on the card you just played).
Winning the Game: When a player scores 10 total points, he wins the game.
Relationships to Other Games
Nexus is a tile-laying game with majority-based area control scoring.
The clear analogy to Nexus is German favorite Carcassonne; both involve the creation of areas via the placement of tiles/cards and taking control of those areas via the placement of ownership markers. They were sufficiently similar that I found the differences a bit distracting (namely, that you score then place in Nexus, instead of vice-versa in Carcassonne; and that you can place anywhere, not just on the tile you just placed). Nexus is a shorter and more abstract game than Carcassonne.
Nexus differentiates itself from other tile-laying games by its fairly unique requirement to lay tiles down in a basket weave pattern; likewise, Nexus differentiates itself from other majority-control games by the fact that there's a tradeoff of control vs. value. The first is mainly a novelty, but the second is a neat and innovative design.
Nexus was also the first of the Hip Pocket Games from Cheapass Games. Like all of them it features strong, abstract play, quite different from the more free-wheeling (and random) main Cheapass line. Nexus actually reminds me a lot of another Hip Pocket release, Steam Tunnel which likewise features the free placement of markers to grab control of "pipes", worth variable amounts.
The Game Design
Nexus is a fairly simple majority-control game.
It has a few nice aspects to it, including: the brinkmanship aspect of maintaining majority versus maintaining valuation; the ability to decrease an opponent's area's value through token placement; and the visual design of the cards going into two different directions.
It also is somewhat limited, with strategy being fairly basic, and little ability to truly foil a lucky card's placement (e.g., a four-point node newly attached to a self-contained area, will usually be worth 1-4 points, and won't be taken from you).
Overall, I give it an average Substance rating: "3" out of "5".
Conclusion
The first Hip Pocket Game isn't terribly deep, but it's a solid design that's a nice diversion if you're looking for a very short game that combines tile-laying and majority control.
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