PAX 09: Elemental: War of Magic Impressions

PAX is a crazy time filled with games, lights, magic and the occasional mechanical bull. It is easy to get lost in the ruckus and thankfully Stardock did not fall by the wayside. For the uninformed, Stardock is an independent game company that relies more on word of mouth and best business practices to maintain their increasingly large, fervently loyal fan base. They are best known for their titles Sins of the Solar Empire as well as their most recent title Demigod.

During my stay in Seattle, I was able to speak with the team's production lead of the upcoming Elemental: War of Magic. In this title, you control a sovereign of a budding nation. As sovereign pursuing your goal of creating an ever expanding empire using resources, diplomacy, magic and, of course, military might. Stardock provided visitors with a first look at this new title.

The basic game consists of a central "avatar". This character provides you your basic tools for managing your empire such as casting complex spells, creating fertile ground to expand your territory, build facilities and maintain your armies. Users must balance their resources among these elements, creating a number of interesting play styles as well as limiting power players. After a period of time, players not only managing their single avatar, they are commanding armies spread over a vast playfield and managing treaties with neighboring countries.

As the game expands, players are able to take advantage of a "seamless scaling" system. The game slides in an out of a 3d eagle-eye perspective to a more simplistic hand-drawn map view. This provides users with the means of managing with on a much larger scale without having to worry about scrolling around or picking through lists.

The part I was most interested in was the the sheer amount of user modability the developers. Excluding the core engine, players will be able to modify just about every in game asset present to them. Units, graphics, sound, maps; everything will be modifiable using a serious of internal and external tools. These features can be further modified using the powerful scripting language known as Python, no compiler necessary.

While I wasn't able to spend the hours required to really appreciate a game of this magnitude, it is quite obvious that this title is a labor of love. Stardock has a history of stable releases and maintaining games with patches and fixes long after their initial launch. The title itself is scheduled for a Q1 2010 release, no solid date has yet been announced. There also also talks on a 2009 public beta, so keep those eyes peeled folks.