Elemental: PAX Preview Part 1

from JoeUser Forums

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.

Elemental_City_Seaside

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). [more]

Full free camera to zoom in to see little people or zoom out and see the world in a single motion.  When I visited the game magazines, a comment that kept coming up is that I was able to demo this on my ThinkPad T400. No slouch but certainly not a gaming laptop.

 

Elemental_1251917010  

When you zoom in, it almost looks like some sort of role playing game.  But as the demo will demonstrate, that’s intentional – your role is the sovereign of one of the kingdoms that you and your friends used to wreak havoc in when you played D&D or Fantasy Hero or what have you. 

Elemental_ZoomedOut_CityByLake

Zooming out a little bit shows that cities aren’t icons on a map but grow based on your decisions.  The land is fully morphable via magical spells (Which I’ll be demoing).

More to come…

98,513 views 48 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

purdy :) i look forward to youtube videos of your presentations :)

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

Damn that second screenshot is hot!!!

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

\o/  There's a guy up in the watch tower on the first one, and what looks to be a legion of terror being formed up in town in the second one. Sweet!

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

I have almost no idea what to expect of this game but I expect that the gameplay will probably not appeal to me. I do however really like the artistic style so far. It's a game that's not afraid to be different.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Excellent stuff. Lots of intriguing details in these screenshots.

Have fun and look forward to more from PAX! :congrat:

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Look forward to seeing the presentation at PAX on Saturday. Will these be held at the stardock booth or do you have a room reserved?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

They're at the Stardock booth.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

WOW! That 2nd one is freaking awesome. Just wow....Cant wait...

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Double post. Delete

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Very nice.  In the second screenshot, it looks like an army of some sort is waiting around.  Reminds me of the Saruman speech in the second LotR film.  Will soldiers in cities be able to occupy the walls?

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Amazing... Simply brilliant... I love this company! Looking forward to it :grin:

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Any chance that you'll record the presentation and post the video?

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Makes me wish I could go to PAX!

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ynglaur, reply 12
Very nice.  In the second screenshot, it looks like an army of some sort is waiting around.  Reminds me of the Saruman speech in the second LotR film.  Will soldiers in cities be able to occupy the walls?

 

I know. Isnt that sweet? I'm also digging the trolls that are hanging around.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm intrigued by the fact that the Fallen city seems to incorporate a hill into it. I wonder if we can utilize hills? That would be awesome!

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

The screenshots are great, but those soldiers look aliased to hell. But I'm sure those models will be updates eventually. 

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

X-com was an inspiration for Elemental? Sweet, so we'll be paid to clear the skies over various countries with an elite team of individuals from all around the world. And when we fail to clear the skies we'll send our teams all over the world to wipe out alien hotspots and bases? Then eventually goto Cydonia and wreck the aliens? YES!

 

Failing that, I can't wait to hear how you'll scale a game that can be run on an old computer versus a top end gaming rig. Looking forward to the technology demo.

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Coooooolllos! I don't have the time or energy to do one of my screenie analyses right now, but several things spring immediately to mind:

  • There appear to be ogres wandering around inside the city. What are they, and what are they doing there?
  • Looks like the evil terrein is still more or less the same..... doesn't look so much volcanic now as it just looks dead.
Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

That second screen really makes me think of the black gates of mordor... Not sure why...

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Maybe b/c there are gates in it? And they're black? And it looks Mordory?:P

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

I think the best part is the second part of the title.

Elemental: PAX Preview Part 1 :D

 

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ron, reply 15
Makes me wish I could go to PAX!

QFT:'(

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Dude... Sweet! I want to see videos... NOW! :rofl: