Designer Diary with Jonathan Ying: The Story of Alpha-5
Hey everyone! Jonathan Ying here! I’m super excited to talk about the design process behind Alpha-5 in the Legendary Rangers pack!
Alpha-5 first appeared in the Kickstarter Exclusive box as part of the very first Kickstarter for Heroes of the Grid. Back then we were still testing the limits of the system and exploring the design space and Alpha was certainly one of our most ambitious design ideas. A pure-support type character that had no offensive abilities and a suite of unique supporting powers.
The Legendary Ranger pack was designed to provide a bunch of additional options for players along with allowing an easier access point for folks to get fan-favorite characters that were previously Kickstarter exclusive. These characters have also had their mechanics expanded upon in new and interesting ways and Alpha-5 is no exception!
The Alpha-5 available in the Legendary Ranger pack sports a completely new character card, Non-Player support mode, and combat deck! He’s been modified a fair bit to fit in with the current design philosophies of the game.
Notably on Servant of Zordon we’ve removed the restriction that locks Alpha into the Command Center in exchange for reduced Recovery options. Alpha 5 is now able to enter the fray and participate in battles directly, though he is still at his most effective in the Command Center. This means that Alpha-5 is now more compatible with game modes where a player controls multiple Rangers, as well as allowing for a few more unorthodox tactics to be employed during games.
Autonomous Support meanwhile provides an alternate method for using Alpha-5 cards as a Non-player character. This variant gives a smaller array of options at any given time to the players but allows them to freely choose when to use Alpha-5’s cards rather than wait to perform Recover actions.
Alongside a new combat deck full of exciting support cards, like Battle Teleport and Combat Protocol, allows Alpha-5 to play more aggressively than before while still providing support for his allies. Players who own both the Kickstarter box and the Legendary Ranger pack can mix-and-match Alpha-5 combat cards to create their own preferred Support Unit using Legendary Ranger mode!
That’s all for now, I can’t wait for you folks to see more of this pack!
