Journals
Dev Journal
To say we were pleased with the reaction Elemental got at the Penny Arcade Expo would be an understatement. Despite the game only being in alpha, users seemed to really like the direction we’re heading. Some of the features that really got people going included: Family Trees and Succession . That is, one of the strategies for victory is to quietly arrange marriages so that your family is in the path of succession when sovereigns start getting killed. In Galactic Ci... [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental BETA: Before summer ends
We’re on the last day of PAX. If you want to get into the beta, you can still do so by pre-ordering it. After the beta goes out, the beta will be closed to new users until next year. Note: The beta will NOT be fun. These are real betas. The game mechanics are only partially implemented and subject to radical change based on player suggestions. [read more]
Dev Journal
I’ll be giving some demos of Elemental this week at PAX. Visit http://pax.stardock.com for an official schedule. The 30 minute presentation will be broken into two parts. The first part will talk about the game itself. What our goals are. Inspirations for the game (Master of Magic, XCom, Civilization, etc.) and what makes Elemental new and different. Here are some in-game screenshots. As pretty as this is, the thing to remember here is that this can be run on a 2 year old laptop (non gamer laptop) and still look like this with 30fps. How this this possible? Well, part 2 will talk more about the technology underneath Elemental that is new but in short: a 3D engine designed from scratch as a PC-only engine for land based strategy games (as opposed to FPS). [read more]
News
GamaSutra Interview About Elemental's Strategy-Centric Modding Engine
GamaSutra’s Chris Remo has another interview with Brad Wardell, this time focusing on the modding engine in the upcoming game, Elemental: War of Magic . “Elemental makes use of a level of detail system paired to its zoom feature that swaps out different models and textures as the player moves from examining individual workers at ground level up to viewing whole continents, at which point the perspective blends into a flat 2D "cloth map." That will be available to ... [read more]
Dev Journal
Soft: 75 Soft: 100 No HDR. Still working on lighting. I still worry it’s not…happy and friendly enough. But I’m not sure. What do you think? [read more]
Dev Journal
This week we’ve been messing with lighting in Elemental. Lighting makes the difference between something looking awesome and something looking awful. Compare: vs. Only difference here is lighting. I suspect lighting will be something we battle with for months to come. We have time since, ahem, the betas are all cloth map… [read more]
News
IGN Interview with Stardock’s Scott Tykoski
IGN.com has an interview with Elemental’s Producer, Scott Tykoski about the art style of Elemental: War of Magic . I'd like to say that Elemental's visual style was chosen purely for the love of art. That the style was risky but required to properly lay fourth our grand vision of dead world refueled by magic. That the style would finally establish video games as works of art and we can all celebrate our incredible cultural triumph! Read the full interview at IGN . ... [read more]