So I just got my alpha key today, and tried out a few games against the bots. I like what I've seen so far.
It's strange because it's a game of perfect information, but with the randomly chosen add-on units and the turn timer it doesn't play out that way, and it ends up feeling like Starcraft where you see what you're opponent is doing and you go for a counterbuild.
The tricky thing is figuring out how best to take advantage of the add-on units. Say, You see that you're opponent is being a bit passive at the start, so you try to breach early, only to see your opponent throw down some crazy defender that will take you 4 turns just to destroy. For example, that 6 health frontline defender. Against such strong defenders, you need to find a fast way to build attack power in order to breach.
It's also like Starcraft in that the play that costs you the game might have been made very early on. You only have an intuitive sense of this. Even so, using a fast timer like 5 seconds per turn gives the game a blitz chess sort of feel where players are pressured to play fast that might see your opponent make a big mistake later on the cancel out a mistake you made earlier.
Yes – I love blitz games. They also narrow the gap between players of very different ELO a little.
To your point about your opponent throwing down the crazy defender, I find that in a lot of games just the fact that a certain unit is in the set can completely change the outcome of the game. For example I just played a game where Apollo was in the set (expensive blue unit, can snipe any other unit with >=3 health). Neither of us got Apollos at all during the game, but the fact that it was there meant that both of us went a very heavy econ green-focused build, because those units have higher health. This kind of dynamic is what makes the game so fresh, since you'll never see the same set of units twice.
I'm new to this forum, after stumbling upon this post where members were talking about Prismata, a new online competitive strategy game made by the company I work for!
We've recently opened up alpha access to people supporting our Kickstarter campaign, but we also love raising awareness by giving out keys to people like you guys. Both our devs and a lot of our playerbase love Dominion, as there are a lot of similarities with our game. In fact, the earliest iteration of Prismata was codenamed MCDS (Magic/Chess/Dominion/Starcraft) in honor of the games that inspired it.
If you would like an alpha access key, or you have any questions about the game, please reply to this topic.
About Prismata:
Like Dominion, players in Prismata take turns purchasing "cards" using various resources. In addition to a base set of units available every game, each new game is fresh thanks to a randomly-generated pool of purchasable units. Instead of competing for victory points, you try to defeat your opponent by building a superior army. You hold your whole deck in your hand and you're only limited by the resources that your economy can generate. In this way, it's a bit like a Starcraft build-order competition with no micro and no RNG elements. This video will give you a good idea of what playing Prismata feels like:
Since launching the Kickstarter, we have around 300 people online at any given moment playing against our AI and each other in the automatcher.
Again, if you want an alpha key, please reply to this topic.
If you already have a key, feel free to post your username so that you can play against each other! My username is phienn, so feel free to challenge me in-game
3) Do you know of any communities that should hear about Prismata? Tell us, and email me (elyot@lunarchstudios.com) if you'd like to do a key giveaway. It only takes one person to make a MASSIVE difference, like Celerity's teamliquid thread that led to over 200 comments.
Somebody could probably get a bunch of free keys for f.DS users if they emailed the devs. We're in the name, right?
Hello everyone! My name is Rachel, and I work with Elyot and the Lunarch Studios team.
I'd be more than happy to give you guys some keys. After all, you are in the name. Not sure what the best way to go about this is. Maybe if you want a key you should PM me on here and I'll PM back with it? Or you can feel free to message me on reddit (u/eden000). If you already play Prismata, add me in the game! My username is phienn. I'm looking forward to playing with y'all soon!