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The Alpha box art
2020 Ranked #5,566

The Alpha

A wolf-pack strategy game has players claim territory, hunt prey, and secure the most food. Conflicts demand a choice between risking injury in a fight or sharing a region’s reward.

Family Games Abstract Strategy Animals Area Majority / Influence Prisoner's Dilemma

Players

3-6

Play time

20-45 min

Age

10+

Complexity

1.41/5

Rating

6.72

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.0/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.6/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Lead your wolf pack as you claim territory, search for food, and hunt prey. After a successful hunt, you may enter a conflict with another pack.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Lead your wolf pack as you claim territory, search for food, and hunt prey. After a successful hunt, you may enter a conflict with another pack. If that happens, you will have to decide whether you want to risk injury by fighting to keep the food for your own pack, or risk giving up all the food found in the region by sharing with the other pack. In The Alpha, players control a wolf pack, leading wolves on a search for food. The Near Forest includes easier to catch, but lower value prey. The Far Forest has larger prey that are more difficult to attack, but if successful can result in great reward. You will lead your wolves through four stages of the hunt: STALK - Send your wolves to hunt in various regions of the forest and outnumber rival packs to become dominant in the area. CHASE – Roll the dice for the region to determine the success of the hunt. RESOLVE – Enter conflict and decide whether to fight or share food with other packs in the region. ADVANCE – Move your wolf on the food track to indicate the amount of food secured during the hunt. At the end of 5 weeks (rounds), the wolf pack with the most food will be declared The Alpha. —description from the publisher

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
3–6
Best with
3–6
Play time
20–45 min
Age
10+
Complexity
1.4/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Ralph Rosario

Artists

1
Andrew Hutchinson

Publishers

2
Games by Bicycle The United States Playing Card Company

Linked items

No published linked games yet.