Plasma | Preview of the peculiar engineering video game

Always up-to-date and unstoppable, the independent panorama has been churning out new productions in recent months, exploiting ideas, contexts and situations that are sometimes over the top, and many other times offering players intimist works such as Endling - Extinction is Forever, a video game we have talked about extensively recently. Plasma, however, does not retrace the hard life of a fox mother but, on the contrary, takes us to a very different context, far from the classic intimate and profound video games that we are used to playing. HOSTLIGHT was an example of independent production that, arriving suddenly, pleasantly surprised us, because it gave us the keys to exploit the lights to our liking. Plasma, in fact, looks like a puzzle and, according to the developers, is an engineering work with valuable qualities.

If you have never heard of Dry Licorice, know that they are the developers of the Kingdom series, and among the ranks of Plasma there are therefore our compatriots Patrick Corrieri and Marco Bancale, two friends who have been working in the videogame industry for several years now. The birth of Dry Licorice, in fact, could be summarized as a meeting of ideas and reciprocal exchanges to create something unique together with many developers around the world.

If nothing else, this is an excellent sign, because Italy churns out talents who know how to interface with an incredibly chaotic landscape like that of video games. The indie market, which by now many players know thanks to production known as Lake, is experiencing a happy period thanks to productions that, over the last few years, have screamed "Present", being more often than not even better than certain video games blazoned.| ); }
Everything, and it would be impossible if it were not so, comes from passion: on our pages we talked about the history of Dramatic Iceberg and we were enchanted by Freud 's Bones, coming into contact with Fortuna Imperatore and sensitivity of him. We wrote about how good it is to be independent and tried to have a careful look at what is happening in our home as well, inevitably keeping the antennas up. The indie landscape, therefore, could only thicken with Plasma, and its location, if it were not understood, is disputed between the puzzle and simulation genre, even if it could contain further dynamics, which we can't wait to explore in its entirety in the future.

A game in the game: Plasma captures simulation elements and managerial

As we mentioned, we don't know if there is a main story or campaign; therefore, we can only rely on the gameplay of the game and the context at the moment. Starting from the latter, the production seems to be set on a distant planet, even if we are not sure (but it is a hypothesis to be absolutely taken into consideration). For sure, it is a futuristic setting and in line with the intentions of the production, which could tickle the fantasies of fans of the sci-fi genre. On the other hand, this is the year of Space, and recent announcements prove it.




In the trailer, in fact , we can see gears to be connected, assembled and fixed, and it is not clear if we could even get our hands on some electrical cables to operate the various devices. It is a game of intelligence and attention in which each piece must fit together and be arranged with precision. A real game in the game, in short, and this is not an irrelevant detail, because we have noticed that there is the possibility of creating a chessboard and moving its pieces as we prefer.

It is an interesting game model that we should be operating through gears from a table, the manual of the perfect space engineer. In addition, there are interesting elements in the trailer about game progression, which we can't wait to learn more about in the future. Of course, it is possible to build projects and new implementations, thus allowing us to have everything at hand. The challenge level of production should be further explored, which the developers promise complex but also approachable to newbies, should anyone be interested.



Plasma, in fact, could be dedicated to players who eat bread and simulations from morning until evening, and who have no problem pulling their hair between algorithms, accounts and physics problems. Stephen Hawking's favorite subject is still today among the most complex to represent in video games, but the market is also made up of similar works that, in addition to surprising, engage the minds of the players until they explode. We do not know if we will be able to solve and assemble the constructions at the first opportunity, but it is the most interesting experience there could be, especially for those who have always had a predisposition for scientific subjects.

Obviously it will not require one in-depth study of physics and you will not even need to know each of its branches, but you will certainly need basic knowledge as well as an excellent sensitivity for its various branches. When we approach similar video games, most of the time we already know what the difficulties we might encounter in the long run could be, and therefore the approach can change from one moment to the next. At the moment we can only say that we are surprised at what has been shown, even if there is not much more to tell and we would have liked to know more. The vision of the team is certainly interesting, which could really include a complex but well-structured game system, and many hours of creative and interesting fun.

In this sense, if there is a parallelism between HOSTLIGHT and Plasma, we could reserve it on its playful structure, with the first proposing complex puzzles to be solved through the lights in a system that is still well built and embellished with an enviable quality for many productions that interface with the panorama by firing big names, mechanics at the latest scream and limp and careless gameplay. If nothing else, we must hope that, in the future, there may be essential and simple productions in their gameplay, as well as strong with a convincing and well-implemented, if not necessary, story. We must remember that there are productions such as Plasma which, on the contrary, prefer to tell about themselves through the gameplay and interface with the players in a way that is certainly complex and difficult to approach without careful guidance.



The tutorial In fact, we already imagine Plasma: it could be exhaustive to explain the basic mechanics of the video game and its depth, thus giving depth to a game system that, without many ceremonies, intends to offer itself to a loyal public. We know, however, that it is impossible to be able to carve out such a space without worrying about other players who, if interested, perhaps would like to interface with it to a lesser extent, limiting themselves to creating and elaborating new constructions simply with the aid of fantasy alone. .

What to expect?

We talked in general about what the game could offer, the ideas of the team, the design and the way in which it could present itself to the public. If on the one hand there is very little to tell considering what we have seen, on the other hand it is inevitable to create expectations, because the production has all the credentials to amaze and leave its mark. There is a lot to expect, in particular on the various tables and projects, which could indeed expand in an unpredictable way.

At the moment we can only ask ourselves questions about it and prepare ourselves properly for its release. It must be said that the future of Plasma is still a question mark, although the ideas are obviously clear, which is already a lot for a production of this kind. All that remains is to wait.