The following will be covered:
Themeless-ness-ness-ness
Fence-Sitting
Lack of Faction Identity
Evolving Fiddliness
Buying, Selling, and Trading
Themeless-ness-ness-ness
It wasn't recognizable at first, but with several games under our belts it became clear Altered has a theme issue. It isn't controversial, or overdone, or annoyingly cutesy, or silly animals, or anime teens—I mean, women—with giant boobs. The issue is that theme is spread thin, at best. Where games like Dixit can thrive in an infinite dreamscape, a TCG cannot. It needs a confined concept which synergizes the game's win condition, phases, and mechanisms, and can then be complemented by art, keywords, symbolism, and card effects. For example, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, which presents itself as a duel of wizards, features two players who cast spells and summon creatures in magical combat. Makes sense. There are futuristic hackers versus shady corporations in Android: Netrunner, which means installing programs and anti-virus software, making cyberruns, taking meat damage, and cleverly using PR to sneak an agenda. Makes sense. Altered's theme of... generic fantasy dreamland where players cast spells to influence a race won by counting terrain symbols carried by allies with names like Haven Warrior, because when you're racing you need a warri—wait, what?
Altered makes less sense. It does a lot of beautiful hand waving—the colors, the dynamic pace, the tension. But in reality thematic synergy is limited.
Which is a shame. The art of Altered is amazing. Amazing. One of the absolute best of all time on a card by card basis. That Haven Warrior looks great. But it doesn't fit within a tight enough vision to mean something beyond generic ally with symbols to help you meet the game's win condition. There are no limits to the world it sits in. It contains every bit of fantasy and dream imagery one could imagine, and therefore cannot be tied to any single concept or identity. Asgartha is everything, and therefore nothing. You have chinese dragons alongside santa's sleigh. Pumpkin guitarists and the three little pigs. A happy little cartoon mushroom and a powerful Egyptian god... And I could go on and on. It's a hazy milieu at best.
Another would-be thematic pillar of the game is the race: a hero and their companion compete to be the first to reunite. But do the mechanisms reflect this? Partially, but not fully. The movement of the tokens on the expedition, fits. But the card play to move the token, doesn't. My hero token moves forward if I play more allies and spells with certain symbols? Huh? Are the allies racing, or my hero? If there is magic, why not magic my way to victory? Moreover, does the game's (incredible) art reflect racing? Sometimes, but not often enough. Santa's sleigh gives the idea of motion, of going somewhere. But it's Santa's f$%^ing sleigh. Santa should be driving it, not a guy in a mohawk with a purple sheep companion. It doesn't fit. The Axiom faction has a lot of cards based on brassbugs. Little robotic creatures that what? Help my companion move toward my hero? Can I ride one? Does it give turbo? Does it help traverse mountains?* And the Muna faction, c'mon. It's a faction based on plants and trees. Is there anything more immovable, anything more poorly representing the idea of trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible than flora? Ride a blade of grass and you'll be there in a jiffy...
If I sat down for 30 minutes, I guarantee I could come up with five or six themes that would fit the mechanisms of Altered, with one possibly two, being better. Heck, let's brainstorm now... Two cyberpunk hackers, for example, deploy the tools at their disposal to crack a password faster than their opponent by getting two cypher nodes to the same grid point first. Cards can be different programs and viruses and hardware and ___fill in the blank___. Whether you like it or not, the idea fits the mechanisms of Altered better. What about a romantic tale of man meeting woman, first player to marriage wins? Dating apps, candlelit dinners, engagement rings... It fits! And what about the next, natural result? Yes! Sperm meeting egg!!! You could... Let's not go there. I said not all my ideas would be zingers. But they do make more thematic sense, yes? And there are many, many imaginations better than mine, and undoubtedly they could land on something more contained and identifiable.
Fence-sitting
The lack of thematic commitment is just one part of the fence sitting, however. Equinox likewise seem to have uncertain financial goals. In the recent Gamefound update, there is the question: “What about the 50k goal?” This is asked in response to the idea that $50k is potentially not enough to meaningfully sustain or prolong the game. It's one person's yearly salary, let alone marketing budget, production costs, a team of designers, artists, developers, etc., etc. So why cheat the view? Why set the financial bar so low? Equinox's response was: “The funding goal displayed on Gamefound is symbolic...” A week later they came, begging would be pledgers: In fact, we need 2.5mil to keep going. What's the real number? $50k? $2.5mil? $XYZ? The 50k goal reeks of marketing desperation, the willingness to low-ball players for a blip of hype. Is Equinox committed to the game long term or short term? Get off the fence!!
Equinox's idea of competition in a competitive game is likewise lukewarm. When trying to capture the essence of Altered, they write: We met a player during the Worlds Championship, and she put it better than anyone: “I'm not here to win. I choose to come because here, I can breathe freely.” What does that mean?!?! I understand many people want to play the game casually. Great, really. That's how we play. But at your flagship global event featuring the world's best players battling it out head to head for cash prizes you're worried about players breathing freely? I get it's metaphorical, trying to capture political zeitgeist while indirectly distinguishing the game from the neckbeards of Magic. But as a mission statement it says very little about the game. A thousand PR departments could have spun out a thousand better lines about combining competition with relaxed fun. There's big money on the line ($6 million to start with). A large chunk of the player base want competition to be as serious and meaningful as their playtesting. They want to know the stakes are real. And some zen bullshit is the best vision Equinox can offer?
Theme, financial commitment, strategic competitive goals—all-in-all it's a wishy-washy set of examples that do not give players confidence that Equinox have a concrete vision for the game's future beyond being popular/profitable now. After all, earning money through gaining more players is the underlying goal of every TCG. What are Equinox truly doing to distinguish their great game?
Sadly, the fence-sitting continues in the next point.
Lack of Commitment to Faction Identity
What?!?! That's what you're saying. All the factions in Altered have a clear identity, you fool!! Bravo go big! Ordis are slow and steady! Lyra are the take-your-chances guys! Yes, yes, you're right on all those fronts. They do have identity... So why then can I find Ordis cards/characters in Bravo decks? Why are there alternate versions of Muna allies that can be played in Yzmir decks? Why are similar big, splashy cards found in multiple factions? To cut to the chase, why did Equinox decide it would be a good idea to make one faction's identifiable characters available in all other factions? To my knowledge, Darth Vader never fought for the light side...
So while you are right to complain about my saucy section title, I am equally right to complain that Equinox have diluted the uniqueness of their factions' identities. It's simply not as fun playing your faction knowing the opponent can play your characters under their flag. The same character wearing all uniforms just isn't special. It limits players' ability to build connections and bonds with their chosen faction. Other popular games do this differently. Flesh & Blood, Star Wars Unlimited, etc., etc. get players invested in a particular class or faction for the unique way those factions play, while allowing for some minor form of cross-class/faction deck construction. Emphasis on the word 'minor'. It's nothing like the 100% open field that cards can be found cross-faction in Altered. Darth Vader in white robes and blue lightsaber—pshaw!
Evolving Fiddliness
Gameplay as of the release of “Beyond the Gates” gave players an excellently balanced decision space. There were enough mechanisms, keywords, temporary card effects, permanent card effects, etc. to keep the player's brain engaged with the game on the table but not so much that they needed to spend RAM remembering rules, conditions, phase structure, mechanisms, etc. After a handful of games, most players could move forward with 95% confidence they were playing correctly—that by playing Card X, Y would happen. This has evolved.
In only five cycles Altered is quick becoming a fiddly game. More and more mental RAM needs to be devoted to remembering conditions, symbols, keywords, and hashing out card interactions. Playing Card X now might result in Y, i.e. it's more likely you will overlook some keyword or effect. You need to spend an extra minute or two going through all the conditions, then the possible outcomes, then the chances of this or that, then... The decision space is more complex.
Complexity does not equal bad, however. I likethe current state of the gamet. It's the speed of evolving complexity that is concerning, especially for getting new players into the game—something Equinox should be trying to do, yes? For baseline, I would point to the FFG LCGs of old. These games added less mechanically per cycle compared to Altered. They made sure to properly fill the spaces between new keywords, mechanisms, effects, etc. before moving to the next shiny thing. Warhammer: Conquest, for example, added a “First Strike” mechanism in its third cycle. This was a major shakeup to gameplay. Altered's designers have made one or two such additions to game space seemingly every cycle.
Again, complexity is not a terrible thing. But it's also not a welcoming, I-can-breathe-freely thing. It feels like Equinox have ten cycles' worth of mechanisms introduced in five cycles, and all added at a pace I'm not certain a new game, new IP, new set of designers, etc. should attempt or can handle. It feels there is still so much unused design space within the first one or two cycles of the game to be explored.
The part that really gets my goat, however, is that Altered's boon of new mechanisms does not always complement theme. Yes, that old saw. Where is the racing?!?!? The aerial-related mechanisms of “Skybound Odyssey” say “Here we are! We represent racing!” Ok, fair enough. What about all the stuff related to permanents, terrain markers, Tough, Rush, Defender, Ascends, Scout, new token and counter types, reserve cards, resource manipulation, etc? Where are the cogs and wheels, movement and traversal—the racing?
Buying, Selling, and Trading
This one will be short. Altered's online market did not go live the same time backers' kickstarter boxes started arriving on their doorsteps. Nor did it go live a month or two later. It took almost a year, and in TCG terms, that is a lifetime. I firmly believe Altered lost almost its entire share of the North American market due to the lack of online trading. By the time the market was up and running, sales were on their way down and people were out the door. Despite the game's strengths, collectors had already lost interest. I'm sure Equinox would have preferred a simultaneous release: game + market. But it didn't happen in a reasonable amount of time. Poor planning on their part.
There are also some technical issues with the online marketplace, as well. I assume it functions as designed for the majority of people. But not all. There are people, like myself, who are simply unable to set up their account and wallet. I've written to Altered for support, and they said “Sorry, can't help. It's a Google issue.” (Google was even less willing to help when I reached out to them.) I don't know the exact percentage of people who are unable to use the Altered marketplace, but it's fair to say it's more than the percentage of people who are unable to use TCGplayer.com, ebay, cardmarket.com, etc.
Conclusion
The challenges Altered is facing are not all internal. We are currently seeing a massive resurgence of TCGs on the market, meaning competition is likewise massive. Lorcana, Flesh & Blood, Star Wars Unlimited, Grand Archive, One Piece, Digimon, etc. etc. etc., are all out there, not to mention the Big Three. Altered needed all their ducks in a row just to have a chance at disrupting the market.
Sadly, enough ducks were out of line to stall the momentum the game built through Kickstarter. Theme was too broad when it should have been narrow. Equinox appears uncommitted to it being a competitive game. Faction blending prevents a certain amount of players from building faction loyalty. The learning curve is much steeper for new players just a couple cycles in. And the year's delay of the unique, market-evolving trading platform certainly did not help.
The worst part is the issues described above are practically unfixable. Theoretically, Equinox could create a tighter theme, offer mechanisms more focused on racing, provide a clearer mission statement, etc. But that would be a different game. It would be Altered 2.0, and as we all know, the success stories shifting brand mid-campaign are few and far between.
Altered is fading. I do not like this. Despite its flaws, we really, truly enjoy the game at our house. If you ignore “theme”, everything else sings. It's more sophisticated than a lot of the new TCGs on the market today, has unique mechanical hooks, and offers a richer decision space. I would much rather play a game of Altered than SW Unlimited, Pokemon, Magic, Lorcana, and several others that are active on the market. I don't want to see it go. But I guess there is always BGA...
* To see Axiom done right, check out Steampunk Rally, a racing board game. It's chock full of ideas based on speed, maneuverability, keeping your jalopy together with duct tape, being the most efficient with energy, etc. Wings, engines, cogs, pistons, fusion fuel, etc. feature prominently—just what you would expect in a steampunk racing game. And guess what, Steampunk Rally feels thematic.
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