Journals
Dev Journal
Kotaku: Elemental sets up dynasties
Kotaku’s AJ Glasser got a first hand look at Stardock’s upcoming turn-based strategy game, Elemental. Developer Stardock has mentioned many inspirations for the game from Tolkien to George R.R. Martin. Amongst the major strategic elements to the upcoming PC-only game is the new diplomacy system in which the player, who exists in the game as the immortal sovereign of their kingdom, can have children who in turn can have children and so forth and can thus build diplomatic relations with other factions by arranged marriages. These marriages have off-spring who may (or may not) be friendly to different factions based on their family ties. These off-spring also exist in the world as playable characters setting the stage of players having to choose whether to place a particularly gifted family member into a battle even if it risks the ire of related factions. [read more]
News
August 2009 screenshots at Gamespot
Gamespot has put up some new screenshots of Elemental. Check them out here . [read more]
Dev Journal
IGN’s Jason Ocampo has put up his preview of Elemental. Stardock’s new turn-based fantasy strategy game isn’t due until 2010 but even at this early stage it’s pretty far along. During Stardock’s recent preview to IGN, one of the closest kept secrets of the game, its diplomacy system, was finally unveiled. In Elemental, diplomacy is not merely a matter of trading and treaties but involves family politics as well. Each sovereign, while eternal, can have children who will, in time, grow up, have children, grow up, and pass on and repeat the cycle over and over. Political marriages can strengthen ties and children and family members can become playable characters in the game world similar to “heroes” found in other games who have their own unique abilities based on their pedigree. In addition, while the game will include a state-of-the-art 3D engine designed from the ground up for massive scale strategy games, it will also be fully playable as a 2D cloth map. Players can zoom in to the full 3D experience and set in the options dialog how close they want to be before the transition between strategic view and tactical view occurs. [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental News starts tomorrow
Hi guys, last week I was out visiting the media and showed off Elemental and gave away a lot of tidbits that haven’t been public yet. Keep an eye on the news section here on ElementalGame.com as we’ll be linking to stories as they come up starting tomorrow afternoon EST. If you live in the Seattle area, we’ll be showing the full Elemental build (not the cloth map build) at the Stardock boot at PAX . [read more]
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]