Origins TCG Demo on Steam Tops 15,000 Downloads Ahead of Next Fest

In Brief:

• The Origins TCG demo on Steam has now been downloaded more than 15,000 times, according to Koin Games.
• The demo gets ranked mode when Steam Next Fest opens on Oct. 19, and the Crimson Cup tournament runs Oct. 20-25.
• Cards players earn in the demo can be traded on the Steam marketplace once the full game launches. The studio has said that launch will happen later this year.

Koin Games announced on X that the Steam demo for Origins TCG has gone past 15,000 downloads.

“We just crossed 15000 downloads on our Steam demo,” the team wrote.

The demo released its first major update only a few days before reaching this number. The game is due at Steam Next Fest in less than a month.

Ranked play goes live for Next Fest

Koin Games plans to be “turning on ranked mode with the start of Steam Next Fest, which will come with exclusive ranked rewards!” The studio has not yet said what those rewards will be.

Next Fest starts at 10 a.m. Pacific on Monday, Oct. 19, and ends on Oct. 26.

The Sept. 21 update gave the demo a new interface and board. It also added a tutorial on collecting, test packs and a tentative card list for the Crimson Cup. Player progress carried over. If someone played both the demo and the earlier playtest, they keep whichever save is further along.

The Crimson Cup: Oct. 20-25

Koin Games says the Crimson Cup is its biggest tournament to date. The whole event is online and is played inside the game.

Regional qualifiers take place on Oct. 20, 21 and 22. Playoffs and finals come after that. Matches are best of three, and the grand final is best of five.

The tournament uses the Conquest format. Before it starts, each player submits several decks, and those decks must differ from one another. Each player can also ban one of their opponent’s decks. When the format was tested earlier, every deck had to use a different legendary, and at least nine cards had to change between decks.

The studio values the prize pool at $10,000, but not all of that is cash. The prizes include an exclusive 1-of-1 tournament promo card, other promo cards, digital packs, Alpha booster boxes and cases, and cash. Koin Games said it would publish the exact breakdown in the week after Sept. 24.

The card list is not final yet. The developers said players can start building decks for the event, unless upcoming balance patches change things. Registration is open through the official Discord.

Trading now runs through Steam

Origins TCG no longer plans a separate on-chain trading model. Trading will happen on the Steam marketplace instead.

Demo players can unlock exclusive collectibles by playing with several different decks. They can trade those items once the full game is out.

Koin Games describes Origins as the first free-to-compete TCG. According to the studio, players “compete on skill alone (zero pay-to-win) for limited digitally graded cards you can buy, sell, and trade.” Its short pitch is: “play like Hearthstone & Snap, rip and collect like Pokemon, and trade like Counter-Strike.”

How a match works

Both players take their turns at the same time. A match lasts about seven to nine minutes and is played across three locations. Those locations come from a rotating pool of more than 100, and each one changes the board.

The game is set in an original world built on characters such as Robin Hood, the Queen of Hearts and Winnie-the-Pooh.

The game’s Steam page says the developers sometimes use AI-assisted tools for limited internal tasks. They use them to speed up their workflow and for temporary placeholder material.

The team’s post about the milestone was short. “A big thank you from the whole team for trying Origins,” it said.