They say constraints breed creativity. A completely blank page or a pile of directionless building blocks can be an intimidating thing, and that feeling hit me full force when I first loaded up the demo of Plasma (opens in new tab), a sci-fi building game coming to Early Access next year. But as I got used to the environment and systems, I found some useful constraints that led me into a satisfying cycle of tweaking and adjusting.
The developers describe Plasma as a “creative engineering playground,” and it’s a pure sandbox simulator. Its demo was released last week during Steam’s Next Fest alongside a behind the scenes of the making of for the trailer, which shows how it was built entirely using in-game tools. With no campaign in the demo and none planned for release, the focus in Plasma is really on creativity.
Even in demo form, Plasma offers robust systems for building your own structures, robots, and worlds. There are hundreds of components, and all of them can be customized. There's also a visual programming language that you can use to control and manipulate almost any mechanical component.
The tutorial introduces the basics of the game: I play with a remote-controlled car using a small joystick nearby, and a rabbit-shaped robot sits at the next station, stuck in 'wireframe mode'. With it, I can basically render any object in the game world immaterial and manipulate it without gravity, making it easier to reach hard-to-reach sections. Next, I encounter a car that is missing a wheel, which I drive after fixing it. It's not very fast, but I still end up crashing into the rabbit bot, which makes it sad.
A nearby structure has a broken switch that introduces me (very gently, thankfully) to its programming language. There’s a “sketch” panel that lets me drag and drop components to establish logic and functionality. For this one, I just drag a line from the button to the door, and when you go back out and hit the button, the door will open. When you’re actually working with it for your own creations, it’s a bit more complex. The screenshot below shows a simple sketch I made for using a button to open and close a nearby door.
The visual programming language is pretty intuitive, but it makes me wonder if there will be some sort of manual released with Plasma, because it is extremely detailed. The developers included an arcade cabinet in the tutorial with a working version of Pong, programmed entirely using the game's tools. I also found a cabinet with a simplified version of Space Invaders when I was poking around in the corners of the starting world.
A remote-controlled drone, a console that lets you switch between night and day, and a working Ferris wheel later, I finally reach the construction area. Here the game opens and you can access the full set of tools and utilities. There are some step-by-step guides that show you how to make a flashlight, a small base, and a plasma cannon. I spent a little extra time assembling my cannon because I knew I was going to need it. You always needs a plasma cannon.
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The best part of any game that features a large sandbox is seeing all the cool stuff that the smartest, most creative people have done with it. Even though it’s still just a demo, Plasma is no different. There are already so many cool robots, structures, and components that people have built that I was able to import into my own game. With the click of a button, you can build them in your own world and tinker with them, disassemble them, or analyze their programming. Single player made a drone (opens in new tab) that follows it using laser rangefinders to maintain a safe distance and a stable altitude. Practical.
More practical: Build a dragon so you have something to shoot that plasma cannon at.
There’s a ton of potential in Plasma. You can change permissions in your worlds to allow or disable players from doing basically anything, with incredible granularity. I can already imagine people building escape rooms with hidden switches and password puzzles, giant robot obstacle courses and engineering challenges. I was glad I got the door working. I had to deal with all the frogs.
