From -Alpha
If you value strategic games with no room for luck, RNG, player advantage, or power creep, Prismata is a fantastically built turn based game that will respect your appreciation of the genre. Created by Lunarch Studios, Prismata manages to merge elements of turn based card games like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, real time strategy games like Starcraft, and tabletop games that you may have played with friends.
It’s a magically deep, thoughtful, and well blended game. While Prismata is very much turn based, higher levels of play have incredibly short turns—so short that you need to master knowing what hot keys do what, as you constantly trade turns and try to think ahead of your opponent. It is in this sense that it feels like an RTS. Like an RTS, Prismata also has you managing resources and building armies and units with said resources. This introduces an element of meta-strategy and long term planning, where you start the game deciding which way you want to branch out. Like table-top games, there is a level of variety in Prismata, wherein you start with a standard list of units, but also have a separate list of randomly selected units that vary from match to match. This results in matches that are never the same, and require you to consider new strategies each time you play. Now, despite this units being randomly generated, these units are the same for both you and your opponent, ensuring no disadvantaged playing field. Further, it should be noted that there is no deck-building in Prismata: you and your opponent start with the same standard list of units, and the same list of randomly generated units.
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This creates a balance that simply lacks in games like Hearthstone and Magic, where deck building creates randomness, issues of power creep (where newer cards in a deck are inherently more powerful than older cards), and other advantages that fracture the skill factor of a match. In Prismata, all of this is avoided, and the game comes down to how you understand and synchronize your units, attacks, resource management, and defenses better than your opponent.
In First Person Shooter terms, it’s Call of Duty’s create-a-class versus Halo 2’s weapon pick up system. Prismata comes down to your understanding of the game, and your understanding alone, which will determine the winner.
So to imagine a typical game, you start your turn with two units already on the field: drones and Engineers. Drones generate gold (all units cost a certain amount of gold), and Engineers generate energy. Both units also are “Defender” units, meaning that when your opponent chooses to use his attack power (which is generated by certain units that he/she must build), that damage is distributed amongst Defender units first. They are the first line of defense. The object of the game is to eliminate all enemy units. While Engineers and Drones act as Defenders, players use their turns to build other units: Some of which who generate other resources (gold, energy, green, red, and blue), some of which who generate attack power, and some of which who act as additional Defenders. This balance of Attack, Defense, and Resource Management is the heart of the gameplay.
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Different units cost different kinds of resources, but the most basic starting strategy is to use the gold created at the start of your turn to produce more drones (thereby giving you more gold next turn), build some more engineers, and invest in basic technology units that produce either green, blue, or red resources.
These three distinct branches of green, blue, or red allow you further build stronger and more special units that have their own special abilities. Some may build attack power, some may be built immediately and act as a Defender, and some may take two turns to build or have limited, yet powerful abilities, and others yet may be very powerful units that have a lifespan of a few turns. You will have to plan and manage how you want to branch out and invest.
As turns progress, you begin to generate enough attack (by building units who generate attack power) to chip away at your opponent’s defense units, and likewise, you also build enough defense units to protect the rest of your other units.
Eventually, one side “overruns” the other by having more attack power than the enemy has defense units. For example, if you have 20 attack, and the enemy has only 15 defense, the leftover 5 attack is then distributed to the other remaining units the opponent has. Essentially, by destroying the remaining units, you are typically destroying more vulnerable units that were created by your opponent to produce rarer resources. Destroy enough drones, and the opponent has a gold shortage. Break through defenses and attack the “Blastforge" unit, and your opponent can say goodbye to the Blue Resource that the Blastforge was producing, and in turn, the tank unit that generated attack power, but also requires blue energy to be built. It's an incredible domino effect: you spend early turns investing in resources to build better units, but eventually, your opponent tries to destroy your units, creating a domino effect that destroys your whole economy. It's also immensely satisfying to do.
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The competitive nature of such a balanced game creates a sense of adrenaline, panic, and catharsis that far outclasses the more basic and randomly generated gameplay you find in something like Hearthstone. While I do indeed play Hearthstone regularly, it is often frustrating to deal with players who simply have stronger decks, or rely on RNG. What Prismata does fantastically is make every action a special and important decision that depends solely on your planning.
I absolutely enjoy that kind of stress, because the enjoyment that follows from defeating the enemy (or being defeated by a smarter opponent) completely feels like a game of intelligence and thoughtfulness. Such a game respects the players own sense of responsibility and actions, and leaves nothing to chance or luck.
The Starcraft related resource management adds a depth that creates unique situations that would otherwise get stale: yes, there is no deck-building, and that may upset some readers, but the special list of randomly generated units is a fantastic addition that adds novelty to every encounter without throwing away the respect Prismata gives its players.
My impressions of Prismata have focused entirely on the core mechanics, because it really is the core heart of the game that entirely matters. Yes, there is a cool sci-fi themed soundtrack that adds a sense of suspense and action to your turns. Yes, the units are designed interestingly, consisting of a sci-fi theme and a varied cast of units and technologies. Yes, there are backgrounds/”boards” that add a visual context to the playing field. All of this is also expected to expand, as Lunarch Studios plans to support Prismata with a variety of cosmetic DLC.
http://i.imgur.com/Mk58wOv....
The other big area that deserves praise is how feature-full Prismata is. After a match, you can save a replay of that match that takes you through every turn played. This is an incredibly useful tool to learn from your mistakes and study your playstyle. On top of this, a stat breakdown of the game plots the damage and economy/resource history of the game. So if you’re a fan of RTS games that throw stats in visual graphs, you are going to really appreciate the feature. I know I did. A variety of A.I levels allow you to play an opponent of varying difficulty, built-in Twitch support allows you to quickly watch a streamer, and customization ranging from unit skins, to avatars and emotes exist. A campaign also exists, though a tutorial section acts as a current placeholder. Also in development are raids, which team you up with a friend to take on bosses, and arena mode, which features different game modes. More serious players can also take part in built-in tournaments and ladders, as well as play in faster modes that have you testing reflex alongside strategy.
While some of these features are still to come, the promise here is large, and if the core game is anything to go by, Lunarch Studios is set to take a place in the hearts of strategy game fans.
If you are looking for a game that respectfully tests your strategic itch, Prismata is not something you should miss out on.
Day 29 | Lunarch Studios
"30XX is one of the best roguelikes out there, combining the tight platforming action of the Mega Man X series with the challenge and randomization that roguelike fans crave. Batterystaple Games has done lots of refinement through updates since 30XX first appeared on Steam Early access a few years ago. The latest such update adds a new character for free, one who combines the best attributes of the two existing characters. Also, the Steam version is on sale, making it a great time to travel to the distant year of 30XX!" says Co-Optimus.
"Hammerwatch II's journey to Xbox has been long and perilous. After first launching on Steam in the fall of 2023, the game finally turned up on PlayStation 5 last December. Since then, Xbox gamers who enjoyed the original Hammerwatch and the sublime Heroes of Hammerwatch have been anxiously awaiting their turn at the long-promised sequel. At last, the wait is nearly over because Hammerwatch II will hit Xbox and PlayStation 4 on April 23," says Co-Optimus.
Joe 'Three Sheets' Neate (Executive Producer): "As I’m sure you can imagine, when it comes to Sea of Thieves my days are full of numbers. Development costs, active servers, days until the next update… Sometimes, though, a truly extraordinary number stands out – a number like 40 million, which I’m incredibly pleased to say is the number of pirates who’ve now set sail in Sea of Thieves!"
Garrr... more people to walk the plank and send to Davey Jones locker.
would have been funny to release this on talk like a pirate day.
40 million have set sail...that's great. How many are sailing now? Monthly active users....when it actually matters. How many people purchased the game is another important number.
You don't get numbers like that from MS mouth pieces, they just like to say stuff like "this game was looked at 129 million time, the biggest amount of people browsing a game of this genre on xbox gamepass ever in the last 3 weeks compared to before gamepass was out (small print only 2 million bothered playing longer than 20 seconds and only 100 people are playing it concurrently)
It's all smoke and mirrors
Not my type of game
Power creep was one of the things that turned me off Hearthstone. I just cant put the time in to compete with most who have way better decks
Magic & HEX are enough for me. I'm skeptical of small indie tgc games getting enough players to be enjoyable in multiplayer.
I like strategy games, but I've never been a fan of card games.
God yes. We need more PvP games in which the matchup doesn't decide who wins and who loses.