Tales from Prismata development: The Shift Bug
Sometimes, in large software projects, bugs appear for seemingly no reason, and efforts to fix them go absolutely nowhere.
This is a tale of one such bug. It’s an ugly one.
April Fools 2016
So, you might have noticed that things were a little “off” last Friday…
For one thing, there were some extra special default base set skins:
In fact, we have a proud tradition of having a little experimental fun with Prismata on April 1st. We deployed a pack of totally radical units last April 1st, and some of them actually made it into the game (looking at you, Resophore). April 1st is often a great time to test out highly experimental features that likely shouldn’t be in Prismata, but might be fun to try out. This year was no exception, and we actually did a number of things, including the following:
A Bit of a Blast from the Prismata Past
Just a few items of news:
- New single player content is available on the Prismata alpha server, if you haven’t check it out already.
- Animated skins are launching next week.
- Today’s event, which launches at 4PM Eastern, is CLASSIC PRISMATA, featuring an archaic Prismata base set and a selection of overpowered 2nd tab units from back before they were nerfed!
What is going on here?
Oh, the good old days. A few of our alpha testers might remember when Shadowfang was 6RRR and Antima Comet had 4 supply, but fewer will remember the days when Wall was 6B and had 4HP. Prismata sure was a different game back then!
Prismata Alpha FAQ 1
Attention: We have a new version of this FAQ here. Check it out 🙂
Hello, and thanks for checking out Prismata! Below are answers to a number of common questions about Prismata, the community, and the current state of the game. (more…)
New trailer!
We’re working on a series of new trailers for Prismata’s release. Here’s a version of a high-octane, fast-paced one we’ve been working on:
This isn’t quite final yet (we’ve still got more updates to in-game graphics planned for the next couple of months, so we’ll be replacing parts of the footage later). That said, we think it’s pretty cool!
Feel free to let us know what you think by leaving a comment in the Prismata subreddit.
Catch an early preview of the Prismata desktop build
Hi everyone!
We’re super busy preparing for the launch of our Windows desktop build next week, which coincides with a special event that I can’t talk about just yet.
If you’d like to try a prerelease version, we’ve posted one here. It’s more-or-less complete, though still a little rough in some places (one known issue is that Analysis mode doesn’t work.) We’ll be working throughout the rest of the week to polish it up, so if you have any comments or feedback (or run into any problems installing or running it), we’d definitely like to know!
That’s all for now (but check our twitter page if you missed out on the skin spoiler from last weekend!)
Codex vs Prismata
Hi everyone!
Today’s blog article is something a little unusual in that I’m going to show off something that is not Prismata. Fellow game designer and MIT grad David Sirlin has Kickstarted Codex—his new strategy card game, and it’s a game that fans of Prismata might be interested in.
Space Skins Revealed!
Hi everyone.
We’ll be releasing a number of new skin sets soon. Here’s one of them: the Space skins!
The full skin set has been posted here.
More to be revealed in the upcoming weeks!
February 2016 Patch Notes – Part 2
Hi everyone!
This is part 2 (of 2) of the change notes for our February 2016 balance patch. Part 1 is here.
The patch will go live in the next day or two, no sooner than the end of Will’s constructed tourney (which you should all check out!)
In this article, I will discuss the following three additional changes not mentioned in the previous article.
- Three new units!
- Deadeye Operative being replaced by two different units.
- A few lingering balance changes.
February 2016 Unit Patch Notes – Part 1
We’re currently putting the finishing touches on a new February 2016 Prismata Alpha unit patch that will go live within the next week.
With this patch, the total number of Prismata units will increase by 4. We are adding three new units, plus replacing the existing Deadeye Operative with two other units that replicate its current role.
I won’t be spoiling the new units just yet, but I do wish to announce the bulk of the balance changes that we’ll be deploying. We’ll not be deploying as many balance changes as last time, but some of the new things we’re testing are quite important.
