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.
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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
Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.
Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.
Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.
When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.
The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.
If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.
We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.
Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland
Obsidian should take over the FO IP. They're do far better with it than Bethesda who hasn't made a great game for almost 15 years
"The Vancouver-based (Canada) indie games developer Blinkmoon Games are today very happy and proud to announce that their dark fantasy bullet heaven "Necromantic", is coming to PC via Steam Early Access in 2024." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Athenian Rhapsody is a JRPG with a difference: alongside turn-based combat & exploration, you'll need to complete WarioWare-style microgames.
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.