frequently asked questions

Earlyverse is a new mystical, mysterious, and mystifying expandable card game that is both cooperative and non-cooperative. Players work together or alone to either culturevate new planets as Earlyans from the Earlyverse or spread mischief and delay culturevation for 1,000 years as Mischievents from the Mischieverse. The game is silly, whimsical, and collaborative with a dabble of discord. Gameplay is asymmetrical and turn-based.

An expandable card game is similar to a traditional trading card game with a few key exceptions. When you purchase a set of cards, it comes with all printed cards available in that set. Instead of buying booster packs or singles to obtain new cards, you can purchase expansion sets. Expansion sets are future, new sets of cards that follow the theme of that new set. When you purchase those expansion sets, they also come with every printed card in that set. This is where the name “expandable” card game comes from. Since you get every printed card, there are typically more deck building restrictions than with standard trading card games to ensure the game is both fun and strategic for everyone playing.

You might be wondering where the collecting or trading element comes into play if you’re given all the printed cards from each set. Currently, we have two ways in which trading and collection will play a role in Earlyverse:

1. As new sets are released, older sets will cease printing after some time (TBD when). You will need to trade for older sets when that happens.

2. We’ll be partnering with artists of underrepresented communities to do limited special releases of alternate art versions of current cards. The artists will be featured on our website and profits will go to the artists and/or a nonprofit of their choice. You can learn more about this on our organization page in our Peopleverse Universe.

Earlyverse is fresh out of the printing press of one person’s brain! The result? Earlyverse Alpha. The game is extremely far along in its development but is still in its playtesting phase and is being fine-tuned. If you’re interested in being a playtester, please contact us.

Additionally, we are seeking an illustrator co-creator to bring the game visuals to life! The artwork is currently placeholder AI artwork. We have no intention of going to market with AI artwork. If you’re interested or know of someone who might be, please contact us.

Earlyverse is a minimum of two players and a maximum of…well we’re not sure! Maybe the limit doesn’t exist? We believe the sweet spot is two or four players. Earlyverse was originally created with communal play in mind. This means, that we encourage playing with four players when possible (CompanionVerse Format) but playing with two players is just as fun and, we realize, often easier to coordinate. In the CompanionVerse format you have teams of two working together with your cards able to affect your and your “Companion’s” cards.

There are five unique game formats with SoloVerse and CompanionVerse being the most common. Below is a list of the five playing formats. You can find more information on each on our full gameplay Notion page.

• SoloVerse (1v1) - EV versus MV

• CompanionVerse (2v2) - Two EV versus Two MV

• OddVerse (2v1) - Two EV vs One MV or One EV vs Two MV

• EarlyVersus (1v1) - EV versus EV

• Mischieversus (1v1) - MV versus MV

Earlyverse Alpha is not currently for sale. If you’re interested in being a playtester and receiving an early copy, please contact us. Or, if you’d like to playtest with the creator, follow us on our socials to see where we’ll be next!

On the official Earlyverse Community on Discord! Follow the link to meet the community and find other Earlyans and Mischievents to play with.

Nope! The creator has spent many hours, months, and years developing, designing, and playing Earlyverse to make it ready for the world.

The creator feels strongly in and supports human-made games with the understanding that AI can make life and work easier but not replace the wonder and creativity that comes from humans.

The Earlyverse Alpha character artwork is AI generated for the sole purpose of elevating the lore/story and playtesting experiences so playtesters can more fully immerse themselves in the game while we find our illustrator.

Earlyverse will not be sold with AI generated artwork, and we are actively looking for an illustrator co-creator to help us bring the game to life visually. If you are interested, or know of anyone who might be, please contact us.

Typical trading card games are developed in a way that can cause addiction and excessive waste through the use of chase cards, high-value cards, and boosters. There are inherent “good” cards and “bad” cards that players seek and avoid to make the best decks possible. Finding these cards are based on chance and probabilities, often requiring players to spend more money than intended to chase “good” cards. Or they purchase them through third party websites for high values. The purchase of cards in this type of structure can be addictive. Inevitably, “bad” cards do not get played and become wasteful.

Earlyverse is an “expandable card game" with no boosters and no chase cards to avoid these issues. This means that you receive all printed cards in your box without the need to chase “good” cards. All future cards are printed as “expansion sets” with all new cards available at once. This avoids excessive spending on boosters. Because there are restrictions around building decks, all cards are “good” and this avoids the need to chase cards.

We will continue to review and revamp our model over time to always ensure we’re avoiding addiction and waste!

You can learn more about this on our organization page in our Playverse Universe.

If you haven’t noticed yet, this game is silly. We use a lot of made up words and especially love ones that are whimsical, punny, or are two or multiple known words smushed together. One word you will see often is “culturevation” - not only within the gameplay but within the vocabulary of our own organization.

Culturevate (verb) means to create something from nothing using magic, empathy, and collaboration. Culturevation (noun) is the process of doing this.

Much like how Earlyans use Magic Matter to culturevate new planets, Earlyverse Organization (EVO) uses our game and our community to culturevate a more fun, more inclusive, and more sustainable Earth for humans.

To get a full list of whimsical words and their definitions, you can visit the Glossary section of our Official Gameplay Page.