Parallel Alpha Project Analysis

This Parallel Alpha Project Analysis gives a full summary and breakdown of the various aspects the the Parallel Alpha NFT Trading card game. The Parallel Alpha NFT trading card game is the first product on the Echelon Prime Foundation platform, originally releasing in Q1 2021. This Sci-fi collectable card game with NFTs can be purchased in packs through the projects website or through secondary marketplaces.

What is Parallel Alpha?

Parallel Alpha is an NFT trading card game on the Ethereum blockchain. The Parallel game is composed of digital collectible cards which can be used to build a deck of cards and played in an online game that is currently in development.

A playable deck of cards must include all cards that are all from one of five Parallels, The Shroud, Kathari, Augencore, Earthen, and Marcolian. However, you can play as many of the Parallels as you want for each match but must have a full deck of each Parallel you want to play. Just know that a single deck cannot mix and match cards from different Parallels, with the exception of Universal cards that can be used alongside any of the Parallels.

Parallel Cards can either be bought through the secondary market or through pack drops on the Parallel Alpha website. Future pack drops will ramp up the edition sizes of cards to make building a deck affordable to all.

How to Buy Parallel Alpha Cards

Parallel Alpha cards can be purchased on secondary marketplaces such as OpenSea or LooksRare.

To purchase packs during Parallel pack drops, one must have an account created on the Parallel Alpha website where pack drops will take place. Pack drops to date have taken place on a first come first serve basis.

How to Check Parallel Alpha Cards Price History

The best way to check the price history of each Parallel Alpha card is to go to the specific card's page on OpenSea and filter by the timeline of price history you want to view.

What Are the 5 Parallels?

The 5 Parallels represent human evolution in five Parallel streams. Each Parallel has their own strengths, strategies and abilities. The story behind the game centers on each Parallel's battle to control Earth, their common ancestral home‍.

EARTHEN

The Earthen Parallel are the survivors that still remain on Earth after the great Exodus. They have essentially become one with the Earth and use this harmonious connection to the nature of Earth to maintain their control of the planet from the other Parallels that are battling to take control.

MARCOLIAN

The Marcolian Parallel are the people who left Earth to create their own perfect civilization on Mars using their scientific superiority. The Marcolians have large egos due to their advanced scientific knowledge and therefore are determined to take back Earth to further their egotistical superiority.

AUGENCORE

The Augencore Parallel decided to remain in space rather than inhabit a new planet after leaving Earth. With their ship being their home, they strategically mine resources to expand their operations base to the size of small planets. They had to become mechatronic and bionic people to survive their harsh conditions and way of life. They believe that machines and humans should be one and that they are destined to take the Earth.

KATHARI

The Kathari inhabit Jupiter’s moon Europa. They have become a species of human clones as their environment only allows them to be able to eat genetically modified foods making them infertile. With their ability to perfect the human genome, the Kathari have become the perfect form of human. While perfect, they also crave to go back to Earth as they desire to see the chaos of creating natural life again.

THE SHROUD

The Shroud were a group of humans that were sent into space before Earth’s decline aboard a spaceship to find a new habitable planet. The group was made up of the best of the best people in all different skills and occupations. Unfortunately, an undetected black hole sucked them in during their journey. They devised a plan to escape the black hole before crossing the event horizon as a last ditch attempt. The plan worked to a degree and they ultimately were shot out of the black hole back into space. However, the forces of being inside the event horizon changed them forever.

Parallel Alpha Rarity

The Parallel Alpha rarity system has various rarities (explained below) that play a role in a card's appearance, value, and how many times it can appear in a deck.

Rarity Summary

The chart below shows the colors that are on the cards that designate the rarity of each card. The edition sizes of the cards fall in line with their rarity, with the rarest cards being edition sizes below 100. The most common will eventually be in the hundreds of thousands. The breakdown of the Parallel Alpha drop edition sizes by rarity are shown below and can be found on the cards themselves. 

Deck Rarity Limitations

All rarities are limited to having a maximum of 3 identical copies of a card in a deck with the exception of legendary that can only have 1 copy.

First Edition (FE) Cards

These are the base common, uncommon, rare, and legendary cards that increase in edition size the more common the rarity. Some cards have both day and night versions of the artwork.

Special Edition (SE) Cards

Special edition cards are copies of first edition but with lower edition sizes and special effects to the appearance of them in game. 

Perfect Loop (PL) Cards

These cards are also of lower edition sizes to their first edition copies and the cards include animations on an infinite loop in game.

Card Backs and Art Cards

Card Backs and Art Cards have small edition sizes of 100 and 8 respectively. The main utility of these cards are the appearance effects they have in game with them giving you the ability to change the appearance of your card back in game.

Masterpieces

Masterpieces are unique 1/1 unplayable cards. Each playable card art has his own 1/1 masterpiece card. These 1 edition size cards give holders 1% of all royalties from card sales of the playable card it represents. 

Parallel Non-Playable Digital Asset Cards

Asset cards are unplayable cards that offer a variety of other functionalities. 

Prime Keys

The Prime Key is likely the most famous and sought-after card in the Parallel TCG. 1300 Prime Keys were initially issued to reward early supporters of the project and given out to stakeholders who maintained ownership of a Parallel Alpha NFT during a communicated snapshot taken on May 5, 2021. 

Prime Key benefits include:

• Special access to drops and NFTs
• Automatic pack reservations
• The opportunity to be staked to acquire a dedicated portion of PRIME tokens
• Access to the Paradox community governance platform

Galaxy Keys

Galaxy Keys were distributed to Pack Drop 1 ParaSet holders in August 2021. Galaxy Keys will grant access to a Galaxy Faucet that opens periodically. The Galaxy Keys also have Key Framing benefits.

Overclock Keys

Overclock Keys were distributed to Pack Drop 2 ParaSet holders in November 2021. Overclock Keys' utility consists of benefits in Key Framing and increased PRIME earnings from consecutive wins.

Catalyst Drive

The Catalyst Drive is needed in conjunction with a Prime Key to create a Prime Drive.

Prime Drive

Prime Drives are created when combining a Catalyst Drive and a Prime Key through a smart contract. The Prime Drive is an Echelon Cornerstone NFT that can be staked to claim a portion of PRIME from the Echelon Cornerstone staking pool.

The Core

The Core is an asset card that is an Echelon Cornerstone NFT which can be staked to claim a portion of PRIME from the Echelon Cornerstone staking pool.

Key Framing

Key Framing allows players to insert various keys into slots that can increase the PRIME they earn through winning matches. The concepts of the current and potential various keys that can be used in Key Framing prior to matches are in the table below.

ParaSets

ParaSets are complete sets of cards from any particular drop. All current releases and future drops will have at least one ParaSet. ParaSet holders have the ability to stake their set and earn PRIME tokens passively. ParaSet holders may potentially be rewarded with card enhancements as well.

The ParaSets are:

- PS15 (excluding First Son of Mars and The Priming)

- PS15 [SE] (excluding First Son of Mars and The Priming)

- PS15 Art Cards

- PS15 Card Backs

- PD1 (rare and legendary, plus Amperage)

- PD1 [SE]

- PD1 Art Cards

- PD1 // Card Backs (excluding Warden and Void Crystal)

- ALL the same as above, but for PD2 also

• PS15 - (15 Presale Cards)
• PD1 - Pack Drop 1
• PD2 Pack Drop 2

All cards that make up a ParaSet can be referenced here: https://parallel.tools/parasets

Prime Proposal

The Prime Proposal is a document that provides in depth detail on many things within Parallel and its ecosystem. This article touches on many of the main highlights. If you want to dive in deeper, you can find the Prime Proposal here.

But, if you'd rather not take in the entire document, we've broken down the main points in "5 Key Takeaways of the Parallel Prime Proposal."

Echelon Prime Foundation

The Echelon Prime Foundation is the non-profit company that runs the Echelon ecosystem. Parallel Alpha is the first product on the platform. Echelon will contain a library of games from game studios that want to develop within the Echelon infrastructure. This infrastructure includes smart contract libraries, secure communication infrastructure, governance structures, and token distribution frameworks. The whole ecosystem of games will utilize the PRIME token currency, making the entire suite of games decentralized and community owned(more on PRIME token below). Like the Prime Proposal, there is a lot more in depth detail to the Echelon Prime Foundation in the Echelon Whitepaper.

Similarly, we've broken down the five key takeaways of the Echelon Whitepaper here. 

PRIME Tokens

PRIME Tokens are the central utility token that the play-2-earn mechanics of Parallel will run on. The token will be fixed to 111,111,111.11 supply tokens and facilitate gameplay and serve as the reward currency for winners of a Parallel TCG match. The token will support the governance decisions of the Echelon ecosystem and community treasury. Further utility of the token will include exclusive access to proprietary Echelon technologies, products, and experiences. 

While the token's main distribution will be through the play-2-earn mechanics, it will also be available to game studios that develop within the Echelon ecosystem and use the token within their games. Stakers of ParaSets, PRIME tokens, and Prime Drives will also receive a portion of PRIME tokens.

From the Parallel Prime proposal, spent PRIME tokens on in-game functions are redistributed to the community through what is called game sinks. The tokens spent that get deposited into the game sinks are redistributed as follows:

• 65% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to Echelon’s P2E Pool.
• 15% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to the holders of staked ParaSets in the Echelon Ecosystem.
• 3% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to holders of staked Prime Drive NFTs in the Echelon Ecosystem.
• 10% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to users who stake PRIME tokens in the Echelon Ecosystem.
• 5% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to Parallel Studios.
• 2% of PRIME tokens deposited into in-game sinks will be returned to the Echelon Prime Foundation treasury.

Summary of PRIME token uses and interactions:

Making Cards Affordable

One may be wondering how people can play the game when cards are so expensive. However, Parallel Studios has plans to make the game more accessible to everyone.

Apparitions

One way to make the game more affordable is through non-NFT cards called Apparitions that can be earned via gameplay or sold in non-NFT packs. While they can play just like NFT cards, they wouldn’t earn nearly the amount of PRIME as NFT decks.

Card Continuum

Card Continuum is the name for the expansion of the Parallel TCG after the Parallel Alpha set. With Card Continuum, cards will be “reprinted” with much higher edition sizes to allow for cheap entry to building a deck. However, these “reprints” will be distinct from the Parallel Alpha set in that they won’t be designated as first edition or special edition, for example. Furthermore, the expansion version will have many other identifying features such as a “CC” designation and different art or frames, so as not to devalue the original Alpha prints.

Lineage System

The Lineage System involves leveling up cards in one's deck through XP gained after each win. Leveling up cards would also cost PRIME in addition to having to fill up the XP meter each level up. The level up system will also allow for card spawning or creating a new version of the card while paying a PRIME fee. Spawned cards would be designated as such and not take away from the Special Edition (SE), First Edition (FE), or Perfect Loop (PL) rarities. 

Parallel Trading Card Gameplay

A Parallel Trading Card Game match is between two players who have at least one deck containing 40 cards. The goal is to get your opponent's life to 0. As of right now, players start with 30 life. As mentioned in the summary above, all cards in a deck of 40 must be from the same Parallel with the exception of Universal cards that can be mixed in any deck. A player can have up to 3 copies of each card, with the exception of legendary cards that are limited to 1 copy per deck.

The game is still in development, and there are still many specifics of the gameplay to be released and figured out in gameplay. For example, nobody knows yet which cards are the strongest to develop any strategies yet. Also, attributes of a card such as HP, XP, and Health are not currently written into the NFTs until the developers have ensured balanced game play.

Card Types

• Creatures, constructs, and beings - occupy the board and engage in battle
• Relics - non-combat cards that occupy the board and have various effects
• Effects - spells that can be used one time then discarded
• Upgrades - increases and other effects that are attached to units on the battlefield

Paragons

Paragons are the leaders or heroes within each Parallel chosen to represent the leadership of their Parallel. There are 3 Paragons for each Parallel, with one being chosen to play with your 40 card deck. Paragons give you a passive modifier to your deck throughout the match and can also be played as a playable card. 

Parallel Strengths

While there will be several nuances and a wide range of strengths and weaknesses of each Parallel, the general strengths of each are as follows:

• Earthen: High health, slow, defensive
• Marcolian: Offensive Direct Damage
• Kathari: Ability to create lots of clones and utilize them all together
• Augencore: Agile situational capabilities through the use of upgrades to build up the perfect unit
• Shroud: Limited scope Random Number Generator and the Singularity

Accumulating Resources

Cards can be played face down in the resource pool called the Power Bank which will increase your max mana by one. You will then draw a card at the end of your turn if you do choose to bank a card in the Power Bank. More specifics on the Power Bank's use in the game are yet to be released.

Game Targeted Release

The Parallel developers are targeting sometime in 2022 for an initial playable version of the Parallel TCG. It has yet to be determined if this will be a closed beta or full release.

Physical and AR Cards 

Collectors and players will be able to purchase physical cards with PRIME tokens. SE cards will be holofoil physical cards, whereas non-SE will be a basic version.

Anyone will be able to purchase physical versions of cards with the exception of special card versions which will require you to own the NFT of the card to redeem the physical one. 

In addition to physical cards there will be metaverse assets, and other physical assets such as posters or merch that can be redeemed using PRIME tokens.

Lastly, physical cards are important to be able to play an AR version of the game. Physical cards will be required to be used as markers for 3D objects to be able to be mapped on top of them in AR.

A preview of what the AR version of the game might look like can be seen here.