- If you love something, set it Free-to-play! - 22 May 2024
Dear Engineers, We have two pieces of news to share today, a good one and a bad one. Starting with the good one, from May 30 Plasma will be free to download and play here on Steam. We are doing this in the hopes that as many people get to enjoy the game while it's still relevant. So if you or anyone you know are passionate about programming and/or robotics, now is the perfect time to mess around in the fun sandbox of Plasma. Onto the bad news, we had to make the hard decision to no longer support development of the game. We tried our best, made plenty of mistakes on the way, but ultimately the hard truth is that Plasma has totally failed as a commercial project. While there are things we wish we had done differently, we are still very proud of what we achieved as a small independent team. We would like to thank all players and members of the community that made the development journey o…
- Update 0.4.0.0 - 20 February 2024
Dear Engineers, We're excited to push our first update out since resuming development. Today we're bringing some commonly requested features and improvements, thanks to everyone who is contributing with their ideas and feedback on the forums and on our friendly Discord server. Offset Changes We've changed the Offset operation to now support all 3 axis and increased the maximum amount of offset available to 0.5m, this should make life easier when building intricate models. Component Spawner Additions Component Spawner now features two new properties: Lifetime: Allows you to define a time after which the spawned component will auto-destroy Force: Applies a force to the spawned object Now you can finally make that tennis ball thrower you've been dreaming about! Other Changes In no particular order: Gamepad Interface: Added 'Enabled' property to quickly enable/disable input Raw Mechanic Com…
- Development Resuming - 8 February 2024
Dear Engineers, We are excited to share the news that development on Plasma is resuming. The team has shrunk back to its original 2 co-founders (Patrick and Marco) and we're still not exactly sure where the focus will be in the early days, what we do know is that taking a break from development was healthy for us and our families and we are now ready to put more time and effort into Plasma. Feedback and suggestions from the community are a driving force behind the game, so if you're interested in participating please join us on Discord where we will be seeking your input to shape future work. We appreciate everyone's interest in the game and contributions to the Workshop so far and we look forward to seeing more brilliant and crazy engineering ideas come to life in Plasma. Sincerely, Patrick and Marco
- Development Hiatus - 13 September 2023
Dear Engineers, With great reluctance we announce today that Plasma is going on an indefinite development hiatus. It has been an incredible 6 year journey, Plasma being the longest and most ambitious project we ever worked on. We are very proud of what our small team has achieved, and most importantly we are extremely thankful to our community for the support, time, energy, and passion that so many of you dedicated to the game. The community shared over 2300 Devices and 140 Worlds on the Workshop, amazing! The past year has been a wild ride for us. We released our reveal trailer almost exactly a year ago, and we were blown away by the reception, with half a million views! And we were stoked to see the demo of Plasma being one of the most played demos of the Steam Next Fest we participated in. This wild ride however, and the 6 years of immense dedication, have been very taxing on us. On…
- Engineering Challenge: Sumo Bots - 9 July 2023
Summer is here and we want to invite you to join our biggest Engineering Challenge yet! We have a special themed World just for the occasion, download it from the Workshop using World ID: 2993542422 Do you like BattleBots? Do you like outsmarting your opponents and proving your worth? Well, don't just stand around, join us! The challenge will be primarily run on our Discord server so make sure to come JOIN US THERE! Our second Engineering challenge is live NOW and ends on Saturday, July 15, 2023, 9:00 PM CET Once ended we'll have a LIVESTREAM on Monday, July 17, 2023, 7:00 PM CET where we pit your robots against one another in a Tournament. Robots will be manually reviewed by us in our official Discord to avoid any shenanigans :) We have a strict ruleset this time around, your robot must: Be an original device Be a single device no heavier than 50Kg Fit within the orange area/scale (you…
- Milestone 1 - Closed Loops - 12 June 2023
Hey there Engineers! It’s already been 2 months since the Early Access release, it has been amazing to see what the community is coming up with and the creativity and ingenuity shown by creators on the Workshop. On our end we’ve been hard at work fixing bugs and closely following the community’s needs, and today we’re happy to finally reach our first milestone: Closed Loops! One of the unique aspects of Plasma is its physics engine, which uses articulated bodies to simulate joint movement - a technology normally used in robotics simulations due to its accuracy and rigidity. One of the downsides however is the inherent inability to form closed mechanical loops - until now! By making use of a rigid body constraint between the articulated bodies we can form closed loops, these won’t be as rigid as the rest of the Device but work very well in most scenarios. When two Joiners belong to the s…
- Hotfix for 0.3.1.1 - 22 May 2023
FIXES Fixed an issue that would crash the game when interacting with a Text property in several components and nodes. The "Despawner" component now correctly despawns devices that are very close to it. The "Color Painter" component is now allowed to paint in a staged world where the player has no permission to paint. The "Glass Part D" component is no longer missing the "Glass Opacity" property. Fixed the "Fill Rect" command on the "Shape Drawer" node. Fixed an artifact in the "Quarter Tube Window" component.
- Minor Update - 0.3.1.1 - 19 May 2023
Welcome to another exciting update. The drones at PlasmaLabs Inc. are especially proud of this one! IMPROVEMENTS Added the "Net Link" component: it allows you to execute web requests. You can use it to talk to REST servers and retrieve or post data. It supports text and images. We are pretty excited about this one! Added the "Hex Arch" and "Semi Hex Arch" components. They fit very well with the glass components we added in the previous update. Added the "Mini Docking Station" component. It's basically a smaller and less intrusive version of the "Docking Station" component. Added the "JSON Inspector" node. You can use it to query or traverse a JSON blob. The perfect companion for the "Net Link" component! Added the "Sound Fetcher" node. It allows you to get a sound asset by its name. Added the "Text Array Converter" and "Number Array Converter" nodes to easily go from Text to TextArray o…
- Hotfix for 0.3.1.0 - 10 May 2023
FIXES Removed Lab Medium biome since it was crashing the game and wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Don't worry, you're not missing much, it's just a test biome we use internally. Fixed sharp notes volume. Fixed "Quarter Tube Window" model. Fixed "Square Screen" model.
- Plasma - v0.3.1.0 - 9 May 2023
Welcome to this new juicy update brought to you by our beloved drones at PlasmaLabs Inc.! IMPROVEMENTS Added a batch of new components called "Glass Part": these components are designed to be used on vehicles as canopies, but we know you'll find all kinds of other uses for them! Added a few new Basic components: "Flat Rod L Junction", "Quarter Tube", "Quarter Tube Window", "Semi Tube", "Semi Tube Window", "Semi Tube Corner" and "Ramp Corner". You should be able to create interesting devices with those tube components! Added the "Despawner" component: similar to the Death Ray, but smaller, quieter and doesn't have a cooldown. Designed to be used in factory-like scenarios (or when you want to silently destroy devices). Added the "Square Screen" component: a square version of our beloved Screen! Added the "Button Triangle" component: a triangular version of the Button. Improved the "Sphere…
- Minor Update - 0.3.0.5 - 25 April 2023
A small update while we work on the big stuff! IMPROVEMENTS New "Semi Tube" component added. Increased range of the "Elevator" component. Added sharp notes to the sound library. Replaced the "Showcase" tab in the Device and World browsers with a more functional "Most Popular" one that fetches the most trending workshop items of the last two weeks. Improved crash reports. FIXES Fixed one of the most recurring crashes that would happen when creating a new world, quitting and then opening the game. Fixed another crash that would happen when exiting Playtesting in a staged world while docked. Fixed a nasty bug in the "Image Blitter" node that would introduce artifacts while blitting.
- Hotfix for the hotfix for 0.3.0.4 - 17 April 2023
FIXES Fixed a bug that would show the whole homebase in Wireframe effect. Fixed a nasty bug that would make repeatable nodes (Dispatcher, Modules, Repeater...) not output correctly.
- Hotfix for 0.3.0.4 - 16 April 2023
FIXES Fixed a bug that would make all sensors stop working when mounted on a Player Connector component. Fixed a vfx bug that would show a teleported device in Solid mode when it was actually in Wireframe mode.
- Minor Update - 0.3.0.4 - 13 April 2023
Just in time for the weekend! Enjoy the improvements and bug fixes! IMPROVEMENTS The "Distance Sensor" component now outputs Max Distance when "nothing" is detected. The "Holo Projector" component now offers a bunch of new properties: Pitch, Yaw, Roll and Offset. New "Data Type Reader" node that outputs the type of any piece of data. Added Vertical Alignment property to the "UI Text" node. The "Log Monitor" node includes the node's name in its output. Added "fmod()" function to the "Math Expression" node. This evaluates the modulus on decimal numbers. Removed limitation on input values for the "Random Number" node. Encyclopedia updated. Removed cringe from device/world share message. Improved Tutorial experience. FIXES Fixed a bug that would soft-lock the game when trying to place a group of duplicated nodes in the Sketch, but there was no space. You can now cancel the operation by pres…
- Plasma - v0.3.0.3 - 5 April 2023
The drones at PlasmaLabs Inc. have been working hard for the past few days to bring you this amazing update! Enjoy! IMPROVEMENTS Added a "Lock / Unlock Device" system: while looking at a device in Wireframe, press U to toggle between locked and unlocked. When a device is locked, it cannot be moved while it's in wireframe. Use this to avoid moving or rotating devices by mistake. Added an "FPS Feel" to the Settings popup: turn it on to remove the momentum of your character and get a more instantaneous type of movement. Added a "Time Controller" node: use it to get current in-game time info and also system time info. You can use it to set the in-game time as well, but only if you're not in a Staged world. Small redesign of the Pause Menu: finding the button to go back to the Tutorial should be easier now; plus other small changes. Added a "Console" window in the Sketch: if you get a notifi…
- Hotfix 0.3.0.2 - 31 March 2023
Some crashes fixed for players who played the demo Redesigned Guru Meditation window to make it more clear and report more data about the crash Light Sensor component fixed (it was causing a crash in the Tutorial world) Sliding Door component won't fly away anymore (lol) Docking Station and Screen component have new details added to identify orientation "Wind" on the Moon is now less noisy (why is there wind on the Moon in the first place? We don't know)
- Hotfix 0.3.0.1 - 30 March 2023
Just a quick patch to fix a crash caused by deleting a Light component while a Light Sensor was active (was happening in Tutorial too).
- Early Access Out Now - 30 March 2023
"After 5 years of development, hopefully, it was worth the wait" Plasma is out now in Early Access!
- Early Access Release Broadcast - 30 March 2023
Watch us be silly and play the game we've worked on for the past 5 years! 5 YEARS! AAAAH!
- Changes since the Demo - 28 March 2023
As some of you know, Plasma was part of Steam Next Fest in October 2022, when we had a Demo of the game available to try out for a 3 week period. We are often asked what has changed since the Demo, loads of things went in (too many to list!) but we'll focus on the more important changes. Homebase We added a special world called Homebase, a reference point for players to always come back to and explore. This is the first place players visit when finishing the tutorial, and is designed to be the place you return to when you finish playing a Staged World or just want to relax in a familiar setting. New Components We added a lot of new components that you can have fun building with, here are some highlights: Color Sensor - It senses and outputs colors Component Spawner - It spawns a Component Color Painter - Allows you to automate the coloring of Components Zero Gravity - Disables gravity o…
