Altered

• Designers: Régis Bonnessée, Nathanaël Dufour, Jacques Ernoult, Merlin Ismet, François Jourdain, Marcus Kearsey, Léa Roulée, Manuel Rozoy, Charles Wickham
• Publisher: Equinox
• Players: 2+
• Age: 10+
• Time: 20-40 minutes
• Played with media kit provided by publisher

Altered is an innovative TCG which offers a new, refreshing approach to both competitive and casual players. Set in a universe of rich lore and visual design (influenced by Miyazaki’s work and Dixit-like illustrations), this game is about exploring a new, reshaped Earth after a mysterious event, the Confluence, profoundly altered it.

Shape your own adventure, choose a faction and lead your expeditions through an ever-changing world. Be the first to discover what the universe of Altered has in store for you!

What really lies at the heart of this revolution is a ton of expertly tailored details — a new rarity system, deep evolving lore, innovative game mechanisms and design — and a phygital experience that comes along with its myriad of life-quality improvements, both for the players, tournaments organizers and store owners alike.

Born and led from the mind of talented game designer Régis Bonnessée (founder of the Libellud studio, which published Dixit, Mysterium, Dice Forge, and Seasons), this project is brought to you by the French studio Equinox, based in Paris, in partnership with and exclusively distributed by Asmodee.

In Altered you’ll lead two Expeditions – one led by your Hero and one led by their Companion.  If they meet together first, you win the game.

To play the game, each player brings their own deck; comprised of at least 40 cards with one of them being a Hero card. Each player sets up on their own area and there are three Tumult cards that will lie between the Heroes and the Companions.  Each of the Tumult cards has two different terrains that must be traversed.  The Hero card is placed on the top central space of the player’s area, and the rest of the deck is shuffled.  

Players deal themselves a six card starting hand, and immediately choose three of these cards to go face down into their Mana zone.  These cards will remain there for the duration of this game.  They become Mana Orbs and will provide Mana each turn.

The game is played over a number of days (rounds).  In each day, there are 5 phases: Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Dusk and Night.

In the Morning phase, pass the First Player marker. Ready your Mana Orbs and exhausted cards.  Draw 2 cards from your deck, and then each player decides if they would like to place a single card from their hand into their Mana zone.

At Noon, cards with “At Noon” triggers are resolved.

In the Afternoon, starting with the First player, cards take turns playing one card at a time.  Once a player passes, they may not play any more cards in this Afternoon phase (and their opponent may continue playing cards until they are done).  Prior to playing a card, the active player can also take as many Exhaust (tilting a Ready card) and Support (using a card in your Reserve area) abilities as they want. 

When you play a card, pay the cost (could be different depending on whether the card comes from your hand or your Reserve) – and then play it.  If it is a Character, choose which of the two Expeditions to play it in.  If it is a Spell, immediately resolve the effect on it.  If it is a Landmark, put it in your Landmark zone, and you can take advantage of its effect while it is there.

Continue this phase until both players pass.

In Dusk, players now resolve their Expeditions (both Hero and Companion).  Start by checking the region where your Expedition is currently located, and you will see the region types that score in that area.  Now add up the total values in those regions on all the cards you have played to that expedition.  If at least one of your totals in those regions is strictly higher than your opponent’s corresponding value, then move your Expedition marker forward one space.  Both players should do this – it is certainly possible for both Expeditions on a side to move forward.  Repeat the process for the Companion side.  If you move into an undiscovered Tumult Card, flip it over before moving your marker on it.

Check to see if the game has ended; if one player has his Hero and companion in the same space, that player wins.

In Night, all characters in your Expedition move to your Reserve area.  If they have the Fleeting modifier, they are discarded instead.  Now, discard cards from your Reserve until you only have 2 cards left in that area.  Cards can be played from your Reserve area on later turns; but all cards played from your Reserve automatically gain the Fleeting attribute.

My thoughts on the game

Well, I’ve been following this game for quite some time now, and I’ve finally got a chance to get some real cards in my hands and a few games under my belt.  I’d like to split my thoughts into two distinct areas: gameplay and then a more philosophical look at how it fits in the TCG world.

Gameplay

Altered does seem to bring a fresh take on the TCG duel aspect (at least for me).  Admittedly, I haven’t played many since I gave up Magic: The Gathering eons ago.  Here, you’re not trying to defeat your opponent (lower their HP to zero), but rather, you’re playing in a rotating area control game in order to win a race.  I like this aspect of the game, and the intricacies of fighting the duel on two fronts leads to some really interesting decisions. 

You have a battle on the current turn, see who wins, and then you characters hopefully gain a step.  Then, most of the cards get wiped and you start anew with the next day.  This gives a nice tempo to the game – even if you’re having a really bad day (maybe a horrible draw of cards), you can only give up one step on each side (generally), and then you start fresh the next day.

You have to be able to switch strategies quickly as you may not know what is coming on the next Tumult card – so you may have to change your approach based on what turns up.  The game also has some interesting decisions in the mana pool management.  To start off, you have to remove 3 cards from your deck permanently as your starting mana pool.  You obviously don’t want to get rid of your powerful cards right off the bat as then you’ll never get to use them.  But if you sacrifice nothing but commons at the start, you might not be able to play a card early on if you don’t draw other low cost cards.  As the game progresses, you continually have to make this decision, deciding each turn if you’re going to commit a card to the mana pool and thus remove it from play.

The idea of the Reserve hand is intriguing, and I haven’t played a game before with a similar concept.  There are so many ways I can see this being used – though I don’t have enough experience yet to really feel like I know how it’ll work best.  

I have only had a small chance to fuss with deckbuilding.  I was given two starter decks and a dozen booster packs, so I do at least have a smallish pool of cards to work with.  The rules for decks are simple – monocolor decks, at least 40 cards with one of them being a hero.  You may not have more than 3 copies of a card with the same name, no more than 15 rare cards and no more than 3 unique cards.  The starter decks come with exactly 40 cards (8 of which are rare), so you will have some ability to compete, but you’ll definitely want to get more cards to improve upon the starter deck. 

The rarity system is interesting to me.  Most of the rare cards are simply improved versions of the common cards – and they share the same name.  There are some rare cards which come from other factions, and as a result, there won’t be a common card of the same name found in the faction you’re playing.  In general, your task in deckbuilding is trying to figure out which common cards you wish to replace with their rare counterparts.  You still can only have 3 cards with a specific title in it, so you will have to choose carefully which commons to replace.

That being said, the fact that you must have at least 21 commons in every deck means that: 1) commons still have some value, 2) it feels like the playing field will be leveled a bit.  With many TCGs, the best decks are filled with rares, ultra-rares and a few commons that are used to generate devastating combos with those rare cards.  Here, at least half the deck must be just commons, so this limits the effect that deep pockets can have over deck construction.  

The other facet of deckbuilding that could be interesting is that players will essentially be able to run six decks at once without worrying about having to trade cards.  As each deck must be monocolored, decks won’t cross factions.  For people like me that only have 2 starter decks, I will have a bunch of cards from booster packs that I simply can’t play with – but I suppose that I can trade them away for cards in the two colors that I choose to play…. Or, if you have a group of 6 gamers, you can each pick a faction and then split costs and go in on cases of boosters together.  

Overall, I have been impressed with my small taste of the game. The artwork on the cards I have is gorgeous, and that adds a lot to the enjoyment of the game.  So far I only have played with my two starter decks, so I’ve only seen gameplay from two of the factions.  But, the game has many good ideas, and I plan to continue playing a bit more – despite my general rule to avoid TCGs – as the game has been that interesting.

Innovations

So, Altered also introduces a few ideas that could prove revolutionary.  First, you have digital rights to the cards. Every card has a unique QR code on it, and you will eventually be able to scan each card into your library and keep permanent ownership of it.  You can also trade, lend, and/or sell these rights.  Interestingly, there are plans for Print on Demand (POD) plans where you can have them print up extra copies of any card that you own.  That’s right, you might find a super-ultra-rare in a booster pack, and someday you’ll be able to call up the factory and say, “yeah, print me three more of those please”.  

As of yet, I have been unable to try this out.  The game is not quite in full release, and at the moment that I write this, there is no Android app available in the Play Store – only iOS.  (And note, I do not say this as a criticism – I have an early press release, and I am not expecting everything to be 100% running yet – I just hope the app is ready whenever the game is available for mass purchase).  

Sadly, this means I can’t scan in my cards, and it also means I can’t post any pictures of my cards with the QR codes exposed because well, anyone with an iPhone could scan the pic of my card and steal my digital rights. [In the pictures here, I have obscured all the QR codes with plastic cubes; not that I think that anyone would really want to steal the cards from my starter decks… But, it’s possible]  These dual rights bring up an interesting scenario where people will only want to open packs at home so that the cards can be immediately scanned.  If you did this in a game store… what if someone was shooting over your shoulder and grabbed the code from your rare card as you were first looking at it and then registered the card for themselves?

OK, that’s an extreme case, but possible.  Most of the ramifications of the QR codes are positive.  First, it allows you to play more interesting decks at home.  No longer do you have to spend time and money collecting all the multiples of cards that you want.  Just find one, and you can clone it to death.  Also, if your local group goes in together to play Altered, you can loan cards or copies of cards to each other.  Of course, in tournament play, you’ll have to own separate rights for every card you intend to play with – no free copies there!

Also,  the system offers you built in insurance. No longer will the physical cards be worth their weight in gold.  If you have scanned in a card, even if they get lost or damaged in a fire, you should be able to replace them from the printer.  Further, if someone steals your card, while they have the physical card, they will not be able to use it in a tournament nor be able to sell the digital rights.  The whole system is just fascinating to me – I am quite curious to see what sort of market there is for these Altered cards and their digital rights.

For now, I’ll keep playing my two decks here at home, and I am eagerly awaiting the full release of the game – which hopefully means the release of the Android app.  Altered is a breath of fresh air for me in the TCG arena, and I will be closely following the course of the game.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor