Let's start with the playtest bit. On the store page you can now access the current build of the game via Steam. There's a "Feedback" button in the main menu if you want to share your thoughts on the game. It currently features two stages, a brand new tutorial and about 85 cards. So give it a try!
Okay, on to the update part:
I tend to complicate things
How upgrades work in Life Altered was one of the first things I posted on Steam. In my mind it has been a selling point of the game, mostly because I haven't seen anything like it in other games. The basic idea was you had to choose one card to evolve and one card to sacrifice - and the type of card you sacrifice would
However, I have to confess that while it was a fun system to build it was never quite fun to play. And some recnt playtester feedback seemd to confirm that feeling. I think the reason for this was an overlaod of decisions the player had to make on one screen:
Choose one of your cards (located on nine dice spread over three characters) to evolve
Choose which type of evolution you wish to go with
Choose a card (again from your nine dice) to get rid of
The last one especially seemed tedious. Sometimes I knew I wanted the plant evolution but couldn't decide on a card to sacrifice, so I just randomly picked one. It got worse the longer your run lasted.
Of course, sacrificing was supposed to serve a couple of functions: It made you stop to think about your deck management, it provided a trade-off to improving a card, it neatly explained why there are multiple types of evolution - and most importantly, it let you get rid of cards. Since your cards are locked into dice, there is a limit of cards you can add to your deck and thus getting rid of cards is very important.
But it doesn't feel as powerful as in a normal deckbuilder. In a classic deck of cards, getting rid of weaker cards is hugely powerful, because it increases the chance of drawing your more powerful card combos. Not so with the dice in Life Altered. In fact, having fewer cards makes your deck weaker, because you increase your chance of drawing an empty die face. I realized that making a sacrifice mandatory was kind of mean to players. As a player you should want to fill out your dice as quickly as possible to minimize those empty die faces and have a more powerful deck because of it.
So here's how I changed it
Maybe all this stuff I implemented was me trying to reinvent the wheel, and I still like parts of it. But ultimately the fun of the game isn't in spending 5 minutes between battles to ruminate over how to most effectively upgrade your deck. The fun I intend for the players to have is to quickly amass cards with stacked evolutions that feel so powerful that the first thought should be: 'This is a balancing mistake. This card is now OP as hell.' (the challenge should come in later stages and especially later ascension levels).
So, new system: You can still add multiple evolutions to any card, but it won't cost you another card. It will just cost you some exogenic energy (the currency of the game you get by killing enemies).
Now you only have two decisions to make: Which card do I upgrade and which upgrade do I choose?
It requires way less time than the old system to complete and you can head into your next battle with less decision fatigue. Plus, the trade off is now another. Exogenic energy still serves the purpose of buying important other upgrades (like more energy) at the end of each stage, so spending it all on evolutions will leave you a little disadvantaged on other fronts. I like this, because I hope it encourages different play styles and builds.
By the way, my intial impulse was to overcomplicate this new system as well. I wanted to have different types of currency for each class (mammal, arthrood, plant etc.) and you could only buy the plant evolution if you had enough plant currency which you would earn by using plant cards in battles more than cards of other classes. ...yeah, you can see how this is worse. Luckily, I could too after a night's sleep.
Last note: I won't be able to uplaod a new build on Steam for 2 days or so, so the new system won't be in the playtest until then. But I'll upload it as soon as possible.