Prismata pretty much owes its entire existence to reddit. And here are the numbers to prove it…

I’ve mentioned before that Prismata would be completely dead in the water without reddit. And it’s 100% true. But until now, I’ve never divulged any actual statistics on just how much of an effect reddit truly had.

To be honest, it’s because I’m pretty embarrassed about it.

For one thing, the Prismata Kickstarter just hit 100% funding with about 35 hours to go. We *barely* made it. And as it turns out, every single splke in our Kickstarter pledge activity actually coincides with a day we did well on reddit, meaning that we literally wouldn’t even have come close to our goal without the support of redditors. I feel bad admitting it, but reddit pretty much saved my career as a game developer. I truly have no words to express how grateful I am.

Let’s start with the worst… this graphic really puts a knot in my throat:

Screenshot from Prismata's page on kicktraq.com

Prismata’s Kickstarter pledges over time. Like most Kickstarters, we got an initial bump of funding when our campaign first went live. But every single subsequent bump has coincided with a reddit-related event.

Outside of the initial spike when we first went live, the day-to-day interest in our Kickstarter was actually pretty terrible (more on that later). This graph highlights the fact that we were way too ambitious in setting a goal of $140,000; take away those big green reddit spkies, and we’d be tens of thousands of dollars short. The fact that we hit $140k feels miraculous.

But actually, this wasn’t the first time reddit came to our aid.

 

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The Prismata AI: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bots 1

Hey Everyone! I’m Dave Churchill, lead AI programmer on Prismata. While working for Lunarch I’m also finishing up my PhD in video game AI at the University of Alberta. In 2013 my StarCraft AI bot UAlbertaBot won the AIIDE StarCraft AI Competition, which we have been hosting at UofA since 2010. There are a lot of similarities between the AI for StarCraft and for Prismata, and we’ve been able to use some state-of-the-art RTS AI research techniques with new twists. For those not familiar with it, Prismata is a hybrid strategy game that combines ideas from RTS games, card games, and tabletop strategy games. A “how to play” video is available here. Some people describe Prismata as a “real-time strategy game without the real-time”. However, Prismata presents many new and unique challenges that make it different from a traditional RTS in terms of AI design. Let’s dive into an overview of the AI in Prismata: from initial motivations all the way to implementation details. (more…)

Removing RNG: how eliminating luck can benefit strategy card games 1

This article originally appeared as a guest feature on continue-play.com

 

What if a card game like Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone had no luck? Would it be playable? Exciting? Balanced? Skill-testing? When I ask people this question, most of them seem to think that it would introduce a huge number of problems, crippling the experience for players. But I’m here to make a bold counter-claim: If done right, removing randomness can actually make a card game better.

 

My justification for this statement is effectively a case in point. For many years, I’ve been working on a game called Prismata with a group of friends from MIT. Prismata is, effectively, an online competitive card game without randomness—a seemingly impossible game that shouldn’t exist. In reality, Prismata borrows a lot of ideas from real-time strategy games and tabletop board games to make the concept work. However, blending these ideas in a usable way was no simple task; Prismata required years of testing and iteration, and the entire project was scrapped and restarted from scratch over a dozen times.

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Kickstarter Update: Why doesn’t Prismata have decks?

See the full update here.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHUjUG5bJis&w=880&h=495]

 

This video marks the first in a series where we’ll profile the features that make Prismata so unique. In this episode, Elyot and I talk about why Prismata matches use randomized unit sets, and what impact that has on game mechanics and addictiveness.

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This is it, guys. The Prismata Kickstarter Campaign Launches in UNDER 24 HOURS!

 

EDIT: KICKSTARTER IS NOW LIVE.

If you’ve been keeping up with what’s going on over here at Lunarch Studios, you might have heard that our Kickstarter campaign is launching tomorrow.  

For the first time since I decided quit my PhD at MIT to found Lunarch Studios, I’m scared.

Not because I’m afraid that we won’t meet our goal (given the size and growth rate of our fan base, we’ll demolish it), or because I’m worried about our ability to fulfill the rewards (many of them are already ready to go).

I’m nervous because at long last, we’re taking the key step that will begin the transformation of Prismata from a small, niche game into a massive online experience of epic proportions. There’s no limit to how big this thing can get.

 

Your help matters now. More than you think it does.

This is the part where I’m going to ask all of you for help.

What you may not realize is that by helping us early, on the very first day, you can amplify the effects of your efforts by tenfold or more. If we get a massive surge of funding on Day 1, it can lead to increased organic traffic on Kickstarter itself, increased media attention, and even result in us getting featured on Kickstarter’s front page. If that happens, it’s possible for our campaign to snowball like crazy. It’s happened before with other games. Let’s make it happen with Prismata.

To help convince you, we’ll have some amazing early-bird deals for early project backers, so be sure to get them while you still can! Backer rewards will include things like immediate game access, unlimited arena access, in-game avatars, unit skins, legendary emotes, bonus mission packs, puzzle packs, multi-tabling, and more.

Of course, you can lower or cancel your pledge at any time, and you won’t pay a cent unless the goal is met.

There is a second way you can help us, which in many cases can be even more beneficial than supporting us directly: HELP SPREAD THE WORD! We’ll be sharing a link to our Kickstarter around noon tomorrow on facebook, and many times throughout the next month. Facebook responds really positively to people liking, commenting, and sharing our posts, causing them to be exposed to even more people. Helping us go viral on Facebook will make a huge difference!

 

It’s happening!

The next month is going to be insane. Throughout the campaign (and beyond), we’ll work to bring you updates almost every day, as well as amazing events like our Pro Alpha Tourney (with Reynad, Kripp, Trump and more). We’ll also be sharing some exciting new unit skins. Here’s a preview:

sdg

Want to spice up your Drones and Tarsiers? We have tons of skins in development – get early access through Kickstarter!

Our launch video is looking really awesome. Here are a couple of preview shots. It goes live tomorrow as well!

dgs

Some images from the filming of the kickstarter video.

If you believe in our vision for Prismata, please check out the Kickstarter campaign tomorrow!

The Prismata Alpha Tourney, this Thursday, Nov 20th: Pros and streamers face off in a contest of pure skill 2

Reynad, Kripparrian, Trump, Kolento, TidesofTime and SjoW have all been confirmed for the Prismata Alpha Tourney November 20th.

Reynad, Kripparrian, Trump, Kolento, TidesofTime and SjoW will be competing in the first ever Prismata tournament, held this Thursday, November 20th.

We’ve seen these players compete at high levels in games like Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, and WoW. Now, they’ve been invited to compete in the first ever pro invitational Prismata tournament. Sparks will fly as these talented players square off in Prismata—a fast-paced card game with no decks and no RNG. Only the skilled will survive.

Event: The Prismata Alpha Tourney

 

Date: Thursday, November 20th

Time: 6:30pm EST

 

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Conduit Tech Profile: The green strategy in Prismata

Gauss FabricatorConduit technology is some of the funnest in the game, and in many ways the most versatile. Although players with conduit tech don’t have the ability to mass big blue defenders like Defense Grids, or high-attack rushers like Shadowfangs, green technology provides super-cheap defense in a pinch (Forcefields), storable resources, and high – if Fragile – unit health.

One of the best feelings in Prismata is amassing green and unleashing a devastating attack after letting your opponent ineffectively breach you a turn earlier. Playing with green tech is about calculated neglect, and knowing when to go all-in. Here’s a profile of all the classic green-only units, and how you can lead them to victory.

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I scream! You scream! We all scream for ice cream Steelsplitter! 4

As you may or may not have noticed, this week’s blog article is extremely late. In fact, it’s so late that we don’t even have one! We’re sorry! This isn’t because we’re horrible slackers, or too busy playing Prismata. We’ve been preoccupied by filming for our Kickstarter pitch video, which we’re incredibly excited to launch this month!

Proof that we haven’t been slacking miserably: Here’s Mike “Timex” McDonald, international Poker legend, filming for the Prismata video.

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Prismata’s Tech Trees: The stories behind Prismata’s craziest units

making prismata ma

 

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve introduced a variety of new units, from the utterly game-changing Apollo to the more subtle Auride Core. We’re aiming to release new units on a consistent basis, as it keeps the game fresh and players adapting, but there are a lot of considerations that go into creating units that are radical and seamlessly integrative.

I’ve already explained the significance of sniping, but what other game-changing mechanics are on Prismata’s horizon?

In this post I’ll explain the design philosophy behind four of our latest units: Ossified drone, Zemora Voidbringer, Chrono Filter, and tomorrow’s new unit, the Savior:

Unreleased until now, Savior enables burst attack and asymmetry.

The Savior provides a sudden burst of attack and can lead to asymmetrical game states.

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How we added tournaments to Prismata in 30 hours: a hackathon post-mortem 21

One week ago we ran our Prismata tourney hackathon, in which we attempted to develop a tournament feature for our online game Prismata in only 30 hours. Overall, it was an excellent experience for us in which we were highly productive. In this article, we’re going to describe how things went, what we accomplished, and what we learned.

But first, here’s the highlight reel:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/hQE39nDg4RM&w=880&h=495]

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