Elemental: War of Magic - Expansion & Paxton Dev Diary

Got a couple news items for you. The most important item is the official announcement for the expansion to Elemental. It will be called Fallen Enchantress. They're saying it will take Elemental in a new direction. It will be free to those who purchased the game in 2010 and for everyone else it will be sold at a reduced price. Here is part of the announcement:

PLYMOUTH, MI - January 11, 2011 Stardock released the details of the next chapter in its Elemental fantasy strategy game world. Elemental: Fallen Enchantress includes an all-new battle system, more sophisticated spell casting, an updated economic system, new game mechanics, more creatures, quests and much more.

 

Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released as a stand-alone game but will be free to all players who purchased Elemental: War of Magic in 2010 and will be heavily discounted for anyone who purchases Elemental: War of Magic prior to Fallen Enchantress’s anticipated Summer 2011 release.

 

Elemental is a strategy game in which players build a kingdom from the ground up in a shattered fantasy world. Players build cities, raise armies, research technologies, learn magical spells, go on quests, recruit heroes, negotiate treaties, learn spells, build a family dynasty and more.

 

In Fallen Enchantress players will be able to explore the world of Elemental and discover a wide range of unique locations, including dangerous wild lands that can’t be settled until they are conquered. There are areas like the Bhinadmi Fissure, a massive chasm that spawns demons and earth elementals, until a player goes to the edge and challenges the elemental lord that dwells within.

 

These undiscovered lands contain new characters and creatures: from the tragic Butchermen who wander the lands around Red Springs trying to pass their curse off to another victim, to Morian the Ruin of Summer, who was once a powerful nature elemental who has been driven mad by the Cataclysm and the destruction of his forests.

 

Derek Paxton, lead designer for Fallen Enchantress, said, “In Fallen Enchantress we wanted to focus on exploring the world outside your kingdom’s borders. The world isn’t empty and waiting to be settled, it is dangerous and needs to be conquered. There are unique locations with their own history and guardians; monsters settled in their lairs and vast wild land areas that offer their own challenges and rewards. There will be areas the player would do well to avoid for most of the game until he builds an army that is able to conquer them.”

 

To face these new challenges, Fallen Enchantress adds a host of spells and magical equipment. Sacrifice a champion to summon a powerful demon in battle, envelop an entire enemy kingdom in the icy grip of winter or open a gateway to a shadow world that dark creatures can come through. Players can also recruit champions who specialize in different types of magic and outfit them with magical equipment they create, recover from monster lairs or earn through quests.

The other item is Paxton talking about his design process. Here is a snippet:

I spent most of December working on design docs for the first expansion. I talked in an earlier Dev Journal about the phases of game development and how the high level design was created by the end of November. We had our stakeholders meeting and high level concepts were approved. December was spent turning those concepts into specific items and tasks.

 

I start by fleshing out the ideas in docs. Large lists get trimmed, ideas are improved, I try to make the most of every idea. After the list is down to the assets we want for the game they go into a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet serves 3 functions. First it is able to export the XML directly so we never need to touch XML files. Secondly it provides list boxes of all the common data types so we can’t mistype them (so if something requires a tech the listbox allows the designer to pick from all the current techs). And lastly it allows us to do some data modeling.