How to Play

A basic game starts with:

・Four acrylic standees of your characters (one Ruler/J-Ruler and three Linkers)
・A 20-card deck
・A map
・Score Tracker

Players will start at either end of the map – the player who goes first chooses which side of the two-sided map will be used, while the other gets to choose the right/left side of the map they want to be on. Linkers begin on the map (starting spots are designated on the Ruler card) while Rulers wait on the score tracker to make their appearance.

Alternate Souls Map
Second Map!

Each turn, players gain energy called Will, to be used by their armies to move, attack or defend, while the Ruler moves along the Score Tracker:

Once the Ruler reaches the “zero” end of the Score Tracker, they charge onto the battlefield to join the fray!

Points are scored for:

・Stepping out 1 step from the opponent’s end of the battlefield (opponent loses 1 point)
・Making the opponent ‘deck out’ – if you uses all of your cards and needs to draw but can’t without shuffling, it’s a ‘deck out’ and you lose 1 point
・Defeating an opponent’s ruler and sending them back to the Score Tracker (opponent loses 2 points)

Each player start the game with 2 points. The first player to bring their opponent to zero is victorious!

In the full game, you will choose 5 Linkers and 1 Ruler to play with. Each Linker comes with 1 stat card and 5 Action cards, and each Ruler will come with 4 Action cards, so you have a total of 29 action cards. You will choose TWENTY of those cards to play with for this match, and set the 9 other cards aside. You will play the match with a deck of 20 total action cards, setting one of each Linker up on the board in the spaces designated by your Ruler. Just like in the basic game, the Ruler will then go on the score tracker, based on the cost of that Ruler, and will enter the game as a J-Ruler once the game has passed that many rounds. Scoring will continue the same.


We have designed the game this way to make it very easy to learn. Once you play the full game with 6 characters each, you will find there is so much strategy behind the game, you will want to play again and again to fine tune your skills and become the champion of Alternate Souls!
There are a couple of ways to check out a more in-depth look at gameplay:

Check out our how to play youtube videos here!

↓ Official How to Play Video

Click the image to download a PDF of the rules!

Download Free Demo Deck → Click this link to download deck.

Download Map 1 → Click this link to download Map1.

Download Map 2 → Click this link to download Map2.

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