Altered TCG Preview
I spent much of the past week crammed into a series of small conference rooms with other over-caffeinated game designers, publishers and retailers. I was at the GAMA Expo and Trade Show.
For those who don’t know, GAMA is the Game Manufacturer’s Association. It’s the trade organization for board game and tabletop professionals.
The organization holds two large conferences every year. Their largest conference, Origins, you may be familiar with. But before Origins, each year, they produce the GAMA Expo. A much smaller conference that is more focused on networking and deal-making. Most of the big publishers have booths at GAMA, where they show off their forthcoming products.
So as you walk around the EXPO hall, which is very condensed compared to shows like GenCon, you can really get a feel for the big new games that are going to be hitting the shelves of your FLGS this year.
I had the opportunity to try one such game, the highly anticipated Altered TCG from Equinox.
It’s always interesting when someone new tries to enter the crowded trading card game market. There are a few heavy-hitters who have had a stranglehold on the entire genre for over a decade now. Magic: The Gathering foremost among them. But there’s always a new publisher willing to try. Because TCGs are a gold mine if you can break through.
Ravensburger managed it last year, with the release of Disney’s Lorcana. But it took the full might of the most popular entertainment company in the history of the world to make it happen.
Equinox doesn’t have a huge, recognizable name like Disney to bolster thier product. But Altered was already attracting attention when it cleared six million in Kickstarter funding, last year. And it’s been generating buzz ever since. So when offered the opportunity to sit down and play a pre-release copy, I jumped at the chance.
QR Codes and Sustainability
Let’s start with the biggest distinguishing feature for this game. Every card in Altered comes with a QR code printed on it. Once the game is out, you’ll be able to scan this QR code with the game’s companion app and add it to your digital collection. Card “ownership” is attached to your digital account. So once you scan one copy of a card, you own it. Meaning that you can order as many copies of that card as you would like, direct from the publisher. A charge will be associated with ordering more print copies of a card, of course. But the idea here is that it will still be much cheaper than opening hundreds of booster packs trying to fill out your perfect deck. According to the designers, this both saves players time and money. Plus it helps reduce the overall environmental impact of production.
Additionally, you’ll be able to trade your digital copy of a card with other players in the Altered online marketplace. Once you trade a card digitally, you’ll no longer be able to order copies of it. As ownership has been transferred to another player. But, hopefully, you received another digital card in return and can now order copies of it.
The game will also feature cards in different rarity tiers that have things like foil stamping or other visual effects. Again, these are tied directly to your account. So once you scan a “rare” card, it belongs to you.
It’s a neat concept, in theory, and I applaud Equinox for even attempting to address the somewhat predatory sales tactics and environmental impacts of TCGs. But it’s impossible to really judge any of this stuff until the game is out and we see how it plays out in the real world.
Playing the Game
The gameplay of Altered is also a bit different from traditional TCGs. There are no hit points involved, as you’re not directly attacking your opponent. Rather, the structure of the game is a race.
Several double-sided land cards are laid down in a row between the two players forming a type of track. These land cards have symbols on them, representing what types of biomes are present on that card.
This track is further split down the middle into two “expeditions.” A left expedition and a right expedition.
Each player places a token on either end of this track. These are supposed to represent both the hero that you are playing as, and their companion.
To move the token on the left end of the track, you must play cards to the left expedition, and to move the token on the right end of the track, you must play cards to the right expedition. But you’ll only get to move your token, if you play cards with a higher value than your opponent, in that expedition.
What this results in is a constant tug of war, as you compete with your opponent for control of the two available expeditions. You’ll rarely have the resources to win both.
Adding another strategic layer on top of this, is those biome symbols. As an example, let’s say your left token is on a land card that shows only the forest and water symbols.
Maybe you have a bunch of cards that give you mountain points. But those won’t do you any good here. Because in order to move that particular token, you must have more points in either forest or water than your opponent.
But you’re in luck. Your token in the right expedition is on a land card that only shows the mountain symbol. So maybe you give up on the left expedition and focus all of your power on the right.
It makes for a constantly shifting game with lots of interesting choices.
Simplified Gameplay Difficult Choices
In the final game, players will be building and customizing their own decks. But for this preview game, myself and my opponent each chose a hero card and a pre-built starter deck.
Every deck in Altered consists of 39 cards and one Hero card. There are some other rules about how many copies of a card you can have, and how many rare or unique cards you can have in a deck. Feel free to look those up on their website if you are interested.
The hero card represents “you” and stays out in front of you for the entire game. They usually have some special effect. It may be a triggered ability or a passive effect that comes into play under certain circumstances. The possibility is there for a lot of variety.
In addition to the Hero card, there are landmark cards, companion cards and spells.
Landmark cards are played into a specific landmark area, and you can only have a limited number of them out at one time. These usually offer some sort of permanent, ongoing effect. Either helping you or hindering your opponent.
Companion cards usually take the form of characters from myth and legend. The very light story for this game is that the world was “Altered” when all the old stories and fairy tales came true. These cards are usually played to one of your two expedition areas.
The wrinkle here is that companion cards aren’t simply discarded at the end of a round. Instead they go into your “reserve” area. Again, you have a limited number of spaces here. But cards can be played directly from your reserve area on a future turn. Often with different effects or for a cheaper mana cost.
However, after being played a second time, most companion cards exhaust and must be discarded. So a significant part of the game is figuring out the right time to pull cards out of your reserve.
The final card type is spells. These often have effects that take place instantly. And unlike companions, these cards typically exhaust immediately after being played.
The game also has a simplified mana system. Where you play cards face-down from your hand, forgoing their abilities, in order to add to your mana pool.
It’s all pretty easy to grok. Especially if you’ve played a TCG before. And it seems like there’s a lot of opportunity for strategic depth and interesting choices here. But the real test will be getting the full game and seeing how many options the final card lineup affords you.
Final Thoughts
I had fun playing the game. Both my deck and my opponents seemed to operate quite differently, which is encouraging.
My deck was largely focused on removing landmark cards and frustrating my opponent’s moves. While his deck seemed to mostly focus on buffing himself in various ways.
A single preview playthrough isn’t enough to come to a final verdict on a game. We won’t really know how the game plays until booster packs are available and people can start building full decks. But I was encouraged by what I saw.
If you’re interested, the base version of the game is up for play on Board Game Arena. The publishers also offer a print-and-play option. In both cases, you can only play with the starter decks.
The Equinox folks at GAMA were very generous in handing out copies of all of the starter decks for people to take home and try out. So look for a future video where we take the base game through its paces a bit more.
In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye on this one when it comes to retail in August.
