Altered TCG Wins Big on Kickstarter, Offers Alternative TCG Model to Players

A new trading card game is looking to make a splash in a crowded field of card games. Altered, a new trading card game designed by newcomer Equinox Studios, wrapped up a successful Kickstarter campaign last week with a final tally of just over $6.7 million. Not only was this the biggest trading card game related Kickstarter of all time, it’s also a signal that the trading card game market is not necessarily reliant on big IPs like Star Wars and Disney to make a splash. 

The gameplay of Altered is quite different than other trading card games, which usually aim to either reduce an opponent’s health to zero or reach a certain number of points or prizes before their opponent. In Altered, players have a Hero and a Companion, which are placed on opposite ends of a series of cards called the Tumult. Throughout the game, players try to move their Hero and Companion towards each other with the aim of having them meet before their opponent’s Hero and Companion. Players play cards from their hand throughout their turn, each of which have different region type values, and at the end of a turn add up the number of each region type they’ve accumulated. If a player has more of a region type their opponent AND that region type appears on a region in the Tumult that one of their characters occupies, they can move that character forward. 

Perhaps more important than the new style of TCG play is how Altered is approaching the collectivity and marketplace for the game. Every Altered card has a QR code that locks ownership of that card to a player’s digital account. A player can request new copies of that card for a fee. More importantly, a player can also sell or trade the digital token for the card to others on a digital marketplace controlled by Equinox, meaning that a player can own a physical copy of the card and then sell the digital rights to a card so its new owner can then request a physical copy of that card for their own collection. 

While Altered certainly got off to a strong start thanks to its Kickstarter, it will be interesting how the card game does compared to both industry stalwarts Magic: The Gathering and the Pokemon Trading Card Game and newcomers like Disney Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited. The trading card game industry has a handful of large players, but few games have had the legs that Pokemon or Magic have, although a few games (such as Flesh and Blood or the long-running Yu-Gi-Oh game) have found a home and lasting interest. 

If you missed out on the Kickstarter for Altered, you’ll still have the opportunity to play the game when it launches in late August of this year. The game will be distributed by game giant Asmodee, meaning that you should be able to find Altered products at your local game store.