Plasma is an engineering sandbox with dizzying potential Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Plasma is an engineering sandbox with dizzying potential And it's out next year. Feature by Christian Donlan Features Editor Published on 15 Sep 2022 1 comment I had an interview with the team behind Plasma. Sadly, I listened back to the transcript and it's fifteen minutes of me laughing with delight, while heavy aircraft are clearly going through maneuvers overhead. No matter. Plasma is dizzyingly complex, but very easy to explain. It's an engineering sandbox game. You make stuff in a 3D world using pre-made parts and simplified code, and then you can share it with other people. Plasma Publisher: Dry Licorice Developer: Dry Licorice Availability: Out on PC in 2023 What kind of stuff? The team isn't sure - as in, they aren't sure where the boundaries are. People are going to make dioramas and games and working Babbage engines no doubt. Over the course of my interview I saw a working Pong machine, with a screen to play the game on and a decent run at the classic Pong cabinet. I saw a bunny robot with an emoji face and massive feet that kept falling over. I saw an articulated hand the size of a house that moved between waving and giving me a brisk thumbs-up. When doesn't that add something to your day? Oh yes, and a horrible robot spider that had basic player-seeking capabilities. All of this in a 3D world with gentle hills, blue skies and green grass. But how does it work? To answer this I was shown a little remote control car that could be steered with a joypad. And then the developers made a second car, shaping basic blocks, putting on an engine and wheels and a device for programming steering, and then disappearing into a sort of drag-and-drop code space in which you can cobble together inputs and outputs, and tweak endlessly if that's your thing. Watch on YouTube Plasma trailer. I was left with the sense of an extremely powerful tool, but one which I might be too afraid to use. And yet! You can share and import any object in the game, and break down which bits it's been made of, which inputs have been fiddled with and all that jazz. I can imagine importing something beautiful and then fiddling and breaking it in interesting, awful ways, each time learning a bit more about what I'm doing. The game enters early access next year, and the developers agree when I suggest the importing business means that it supports a wide variety of learning styles. (There will be a proper tutorial, I am told.) Weirdly, Plasma is the work of the developers of Poly Bridge and Kingdom, Patrick Corrieri and Marco Bancale. They were chatting together and realised that the dream games that they both wanted to make next was the same game, so they pooled resources. Plasma's that game. And I can see why. It's terrifying - even if you don't import that spider - but it's also wonderfully exhilarating. Somebody is going to find this at just the right time, and it's going to blow their mind. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 27 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Feature From abandoned board game to birthing a genre: Football Manager at 40 Kick off. 21 Feature How I became an Elden Ring detective It started with a save game... 26 Latest Articles Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Atari will hold RollerCoaster Tycoon rights for another decade Ups and downs. 7 Jelly Deals Logitech's G Pro X gaming headset is its lowest-ever price during Amazon's Early Access sale Prime Members can get it for just £52. Jelly Deals Save over £500 off the retail price on this beefy ASUS TUF Dash gaming laptop from Amazon Under £1080 for an RTX 3070 laptop. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store