Prismata

Prismata is a strategy game where you gather resources, create workers and technologies, build an army and fight an opponent. Its turn-based matches combine economic planning with tactical combat: you can time an attack or develop your economy to overwhelm the other side. Matches use no pre-built decks or random advantages, and each one gives players a new pool of extra units to build and adapt to.

The story

Hundreds of years in the future, humans have built a prosperous civilization on Beacon, a distant planet where the sun never sets. Intelligent machines have colonized its frigid dark side and threaten humanity with conflict. Human commanders known as Swarmwielders train to lead robot armies, but when their own robots begin to malfunction, humans face danger from a source closer than the machines beyond the fringe.

Game modes

Prismata includes several ways to play:

• Campaign: a 40-mission, story-based single-player adventure.
• Casual Match: play against other people or one of 30 AI personalities.
• Combat Training: solve more than 50 hand-crafted puzzles and scenarios.
• Ranked Play: get matched with opponents of similar skill and compete for a place on the leaderboards.
• Custom Games: play bots or friends with editable unit pools, time controls, handicaps, AI difficulty and more.
• Expert Challenge: take on harder variants of missions.
• Event Mode: play blitz tournaments and mode-of-the-week events with prizes.

Multiplayer and strategy

You can compete against other people or AI in quick-turn matches. The game also has a real-time spectator mode for watching live matches, and a replay browser for watching, sharing and analyzing replays. Its AI includes work by Professor David Churchill, winner of the 2013 StarCraft AI competition.

Each match offers a different pool of extra buildable units, with new units added to the game over time. The description states that all units are free for all players and that competitive advantages are not sold. Cosmetic options include more than 500 emotes and 250 unit skins; the game also has over 100 Steam achievements. The free-to-play edition offers cosmetics and premium single-player content for purchase.