Releases March 17, 2026
Journals
Dev Journal
Welcome to agony: AKA a Stardock BETA!
For those of you who have been in a Stardock BETA, none of what I mention is going to be a surprise. But for everyone else, stand back! See the screenshot? If you’re in the Elemental BETA, you won’t see anything remotely resembling that for MONTHS. That’s because BETA 1 of Elemental will exist only with the strategic map (aka the cloth map). Imagine playing Galactic Civilizations or Supreme Commander or Sins of a Solar Empire purely from the zoomed out strategic map. Wh... [read more]
Dev Journal
Brad’s Quickie Eval of Elemental Alpha 1
Greetings! Today I’m evaluating the Elemental Alpha. All the various “platforms” come together to start putting together a game. Next month, the Beta of Elemental will be released for those who have pre-ordered it. Shortly after, we will Downloading… First, I have to download it from Impulse. This is the version of Impulse that people will be getting by the time the beta comes out. It’s “Phase 4” and has a lot of new ... [read more]
Dev Journal
Today I spent a lot of time working on the story elements and timeline for Elemental to make sure it goes along with the book. There, I said it. There’s going to be a book that comes out at roughly the same time as the game. There’s ten thousand years of history to work through, quite a big difference from what we’ve done in the past where we had just enough story manifested for the game (like in Galactic Civilizations) to proceed. Having the game and the book being developed at... [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental Alpha: Invites going out
We’ve picked a tiny handful of the pre-order group to become alpha testers based on how many other betas they’ve participated in, forum karma, and a number of other criteria. Those of you not in the alpha, fear not, you’re not missing very much. The beta is scheduled to come out around PAX (Penny Arcade Expo). Be forewarned, we plan to close the beta shortly after PAX and it will remain closed for some months. Those who want to get the beta can pre-order the game. I am leaning tow... [read more]
Dev Journal
We've got a new coder starting on Monday and in order to help him out, my co-workers and I have been compiling a list of guidelines about our coding practices. Up until now, I've just sat down with new coders and given them a tour of our codebase and tried to convey our coding practices at that point, but new people always have a lot to remember and having a document to refer to might help. I thought that I'd share our list with you and see if you have any suggestions to add. ... [read more]
Dev Journal
Could the beta program be an experience unto itself?
In my mind, the fun of Elemental resides in the fact that you’re not just trying to conquer some fantasy world but the world itself is designed to be so organic and unique from game to game. A lot of the difference between games is a result of things like a tech tree that has different techs in it, a huge library of special content that is integrated into map generation randomly each game, quests, integrated community content, and the divergent paths to victory. Now, as some of y... [read more]
Dev Journal
One of the things that will make Elemental different from anything Stardock has developed before is that we will view the release date of the game as the beginning of its life rather than the climax. The reason for this is that a big part of our objective with Elemental lies in the engine underneath it. It is our dream to slowly evolve Elemental to be so modable that a user familiar with Python 3.x will be able to use Elemental to create virtually any kind of land base computer game. ... [read more]