is a story-driven,

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

-based online collectible card game produced by Japanese studio Dex Entertainment and published by

Media Blasters Media Blasters, sometimes abbreviated as MB, is an American entertainment corporation that was founded by John Sirabella in 1997 and is based in New York City. It is in the business of licensing, translating, and releasing to the North American ...

. It was released in Japan in 2004, and released in English in 2008. Alteil claims to be the most popular online card game in its home country). The images on the online cards were designed by a team of Japanese fantasy artists, and the playing style is different from many other traditional card games. The game is no longer managed by Dex Entertainment, but is currently managed by GP Core Edge (a subsidiary of

Gamepot was one of Japan's leading game publishers of massively multiplayer online games and mobile games. History GMO Gamepot was founded in 2001 as . It was acquired by Aeria in March 2003 and had its first success with an online golf game called P ...

). Recently, this game has been re-released to North America by the company Apocoplay as of October 6, 2012. Besides the main game, ''Alteil'' also contains three

minigame A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements, and is often smaller or more simplistic, than t ...

s: , , and . Only ''Mirage Master'' is currently available in the English version.

Gameplay

A game of ''Alteil'' usually lasts between fifteen and twenty minutes. Since the internet allows players to use virtual gameplay techniques, players are able to do things which they couldn't do using physical cards. For instance, players can have the same card from their deck in multiple files (files are groupings of cards that are used in a match), choose cards to use from the entire deck rather than drawing cards from the deck and using them a hand, and complex mathematics can be implemented without disrupting the pace of the game. Players in the game are referred to as .

Cards

The cards are separated into four element like groups called Spheres of Influence. These spheres are individually called: , , , and . Cards of a sphere typically have similar strengths and weaknesses.

Reception

Inventor Spot states: "Alteil takes up where these games leave off, adding exquisite anime style artwork and an online dimension few RPGs can match!" Nate Ming at Crunchyroll praised the "smartly-designed system and beautiful card art."

References

External links

English version on Steam as Alteil: Horizons

Japanese version's official sitePlayer Ratings of Alteil on TCGPlayer.comReview of Alteil on TCGPlayer.com

Anime News Network Article
* {{cite web, url=http://animediet.net/video-games/alteil, title=Review: Alteil , publisher=Anime Diet 2004 video games Card games introduced in 2004 Flash games Multiplayer online games Digital collectible card games Media Blasters Video games developed in Japan