Prismata
Prismata’s new free-to-play edition is radically fair, featuring no card packs, no grinding, and absolutely no pay-to-win. We steadfastly refuse to sell items that provide advantages in competitive multiplayer. Instead, you can support us by purchasing cosmetics or premium single-player content. Thank you!
Prepare yourself for the ultimate strategy game.
Prismata—the gripping debut from Lunarch Studios—radically redefines the strategy genre by combining elements of real-time strategy, card games, and tabletop strategy games to create something entirely new and unique.
Competing against other humans or ruthlessly efficient AI, you’ll plan devastating attacks through a series of quick-fire turns. Will you outwit your opponents by striking at the perfect moment? Or will you fall victim to a devious trap?
Game Modes
- Campaign: an enthralling 40-mission story-based single player adventure
- Casual Match: play friendly games against other humans or one of 30 different AI personalities
- Combat Training: over 50 hand-crafted puzzles and scenarios dripping with fascinating strategy insights
- Ranked Play: get paired against opponents of similar skill and compete for a spot on the leaderboards
- Custom Games: play bots or friends with fully editable unit pools, time controls, handicaps, AI difficulty, and more
- Expert Challenge: ultra-difficult mission variants for players seeking extreme challenges
- Event Mode: heart-pounding blitz brawl tourneys and crazy mode-of-the-week events with prizes
The Story
Hundreds of years in the future, humans have engineered a prosperous new civilization on the distant planet Beacon, where the sun never sets. Meanwhile, the planet’s frigid dark side has been colonized by an enigmatic faction of intelligent machines that threaten humanity with conflict.
In these new cybernetic times, human soldiers are obsolete. Instead, warfare is conducted swiftly with massive armies of robots. The Swarmwielders—human commanders of these mechanical forces—are the defenders of society, training relentlessly for the day when the machines strike again. However, when their own robots start to mysteriously malfunction, the humans find themselves endangered by something much closer than the machines lurking beyond the fringe.
Features
- State-of-the-art enemy AI created by Professor David Churchill, winner of the 2013 StarCraft AI competition
- A custom replay browser where you can watch, share, and analyze game replays
- New Prismata units added regularly, each with a unique role and purpose in combat
- 100+ Steam Achievements to unlock
- Real-time spectator mode: watch live matches featuring top players
- Absolutely zero pay-to-win—no card packs to open; all units are free for all players
- Over 500 customizable emotes and 250 awesome unit skins to collect
- No randomness! Your fate is determined by your skill alone
- Over 100 trillion unique gameplay scenarios, each with a different optimal strategy to discover
Gameplay
In Prismata, you’ll collect resources, create workers and technologies, assemble an all-conquering army, and trade blows with your opponent until one of you is obliterated. Prismata blends elegant turn-based mechanics with the tactical decision-making elements that are at the heart of real-time strategy games.
Featuring simple and intuitive economic and combat systems, Prismata is incredibly easy to learn. However, no two Prismata matches are ever the same. Every game, players get a new pool of extra buildable units that must be used to their fullest potential. There are always new builds to plan and discover, and new threats to respond to. Each battle is fresh and unique.
Containing no pre-built decks, random advantages, or luck-of-the-draw moments, Prismata’s cat-and-mouse duels celebrate quick-fire tactics, deep thinking, and decisive strategy. Will you execute a perfectly-timed attack, or will you build up a monstrous economy and overpower your opponent with a massive army?
Testimonials from supporters and Kickstarter backers:
“Almost nothing comes close to achieving this level of polish, depth, and replayability.”
– Kevin “qxc” Riley, retired StarCraft pro-gamer and game designer
“This game is unbelievable. Someone said it’s like Magic the Gathering meets Chess meets Starcraft and they weren’t lying.”
– Paradox Gaming Network
“Full skill, full focus, no RNG. It is beautiful!”
– Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy, Hearthstone and Gwent professional
“It’s so good. I wake up and I’m like ‘Yes, I get to play this game again.’ I love it.”
– Frederick “Freddybabes” Bird, Gwent Challenger, Open, and Slam champion
“I’m over-the-top addicted. Best game I’ve ever played.”
– Mike “Timex” McDonald, poker professional
“A game I have been looking for all my life.”
– Steel_hs
“One of the most intricate, well-thought-out, and best games I have ever played… the first and only game of its unique genre.”
– Rachenite
“More worthwhile than any other game.”
– Aetherllama
“Truly unique in its ability to refine RTS and card game themes down to the core strategic decisions without the RNG or APM.”
– DiamondGP
“Finally, a card game that removes the ‘luck’ aspect.”
– hepcecob
“When I start Prismata, it feels like my inner child is opening a bottomless toy box that’s always holding something new and exciting.”
– daxtrax
“I honestly feel like a genius after I play a good game.”
– DDarkray
“Prismata is very approachable, yet there’s always more to learn.”
– zihkrihk
“I’m a filthy casual and I love playing a quick competitive game.”
– RupertE
“10/10 strategy game! Phenomenal concept, unlimited replay value.”
– 4nonym0u5
“Why did I even bother with those other games.”
– arisuMizuki
“I feel fortunate to live in the age of Prismata—the best game I’ve ever played.”
– Gameking511
“No mortal has 400 real APM. That’s why we play Prismata, and leave StarCraft to the demigods.”
– jrkirby
“If you ever thought you’d be great at StarCraft if only you had the APM, now you can prove it.”
– Lenor4ever
“After 3 years and 11,000 games, I’m still innovating new strategies, and I don’t expect that to ever stop.”
– Apooche
“Prismata is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
– Arkanishu
“It’s as good as they say.”
– Naitso
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
...relating to, resembling, or constituting a prism
2a: formed by a prism
2b: resembling the colors formed by refraction of light through a prism
...prismatic effects
3: highly colored : BRILLIANT (clearly)
...prismatic lyrics
4: having such symmetry that a general form with faces cutting all axes at unspecified intercepts is a prism
prismatic crystals
Steam User 2
8/10 Card battler/TBS in sci-fi setting.
TLDR: It generously offers a whole campaign and many puzzle-like challenges for free, plus multiplayer. If you like card battlers, it's a good choice.
Good:
- the combat system is unusual and unique: you might think that cards have clear economy/defense/attack roles but ultimately each can be used in a different ways in special circumstances. E.g. engineers normally would just earn you the "energy" resource. Yet you may end up sacrificing some of them to save wall cards that cost more
- there is an in-built undo system that's pretty handly as it frees you from save/load manipulations in the more difficult battles. After all, there is no randomness here, so you aren't "save-scumming", just trying to understand how the game works
- music is pleasant and sci-fi themed
- several difficulty levels give a reason to re-play campaigns
- lots of content, and quite a lot of it for free
- the tutorial is well done and lets you learn the unusual combat system without any hiccups
- the UI is surprisingly well optimized, with keyboard shortcuts for most actions and helpful info for anything you could think of. E.g. how much gold is expected to be produced in the next turn. I guess that's because the game has been in Early Access for a long time, and players kept asking for more and more QOL features
So-so:
- graphics are okay but nothing special. Essentially it's backgrounds and the same 2 guys + android + a girl that appears later on. You'll be watching the few available facial expression of those for a long time
- the story is probably okay-ish for sci-fi. Though, aside from a few jokes, I didn't find it interesting
Bad:
- nothing
I'm a Steam curator, you can follow me
Steam User 2
Fun and worth a try. Seems pretty fair across the board, easy to enter, simple to understand but I can see spending countless hours trying to master it. Very strategic and has a solid campaign to play along with.
Steam User 1
Great game design with hearthstone mixed with Starcraft but with no RNG. Sadly low player pool and developed either by only one person or a very small team. No pay to win luckily.
Steam User 0
No chance, no luck, no bs. Prismata is a great strategy game, and at its core, much more interesting than magic, hearthstone, or other pay to win with luck card games.
The biggest issue I have is that this game is a real drag waiting for people to take their turns. There are timed "blitz" modes, but you run out of time for "big hands" or late game scenarios. They should have had an adaptive mode where turn length was adjusted based on number of cards to manage.
Steam User 0
BLOODY AMAZING!
i was fed up with the massive amount of power creep in magic the gathering (arena), which amplified the luck from card draw to the point that 80% of games are not decided by player input whatsoever and the entire game is a foregone conclusion due to the card draw seed.
This game completely recifies this: it's a mix of chess and magic/hearth stone/runeterra. My new favorite game! And it has an amazing quick-tutorial (recommended!) for anyone who is already versed in general card games of such a nature. Lunarch Studios you guys (/girls?) are amazing.
Steam User 0
This game hooked me again and again. I had to desinstall it, else i would play it everyday instead of doing anything productive !
This is how a great RTS card game should be. This should be a historical reference.
I'm very sad that the game did not worked as much as it deserved.
It's still super fun to play against bots.