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 stuff but we’ll talk about that soon enough.

For those who aren’t in the alpha, you’re not missing much. There isn’t much “game” there yet.  The primary purpose of this alpha is to let us just get some early feedback on the basic engine and let us get things set up for the beta.

The Alpha intro screen.

The Alpha, like Beta 1, will all take place on the cloth map. The idea here is to take all the eye candy away and let beta testers focus first on just the game play. So again, people looking to have “fun” with the alpha or beta 1 should stay far far away from this. The whole point of a Stardock beta is to let people help mold the final game.

When a player starts the game, they have just their sovereign. If he (or she) dies, you die.   You will want to build cities near fertile land which, in Elemental, is relatively rare. Fertile land is designated (for now) by a green and yellow flower tile.

Once you build a city, you can begin researching techs.  This screen is still a work in progress (like everything else) and not likely to resemble the final screen. Suffice to say, as you research technologies, new paths open up which are displayed at the bottom.

Clicking on a city will allow players to build new things right on the map. At first, there won’t be much to build. But over time, lots of different things will become available (though in alpha 1 we have purposely limited it to just a handful of things).

Early on, you will want to build units to protect your cities. You can also design units (though it’s pretty basic right now). 

As your influence grows, your zone of control will grow (which as you can see in this screenshot, I’ve asked to tone down a bit).

In Elemental, the power of your empire will rest on your control of the magical shards which give your side the mana necessary to cast ever more powerful spells. In addition, your economy is based on your control of key resources.  Elemental (unlike Galactic Civilizations) has no concept of “industrial units”.  You want to build something, you better control the necessary resource otherwise it’ll take a ridiculous amount of time.  The more of those resources you control, the faster you can build things.  Thus, control of one iron deposit is not as good as controlling two or three iron deposits when it comes to making steel weapons.

So over the coming weeks, the economy and magic of Elemental will begin to take shape and beta testers will, ideally, find the game fun despite the Commodore-64 style graphics.  Then, when the full environment is added in as well as the tactical battles the fun will be greatly amplified because you’ll be able to see the true effects of your power and we can convey a lot more information visually in a way that is pleasing to the eye (which we can’t really do without the cool graphics easily).

Once the Alpha program gets complete, assets and features will start getting injected into the game at an accelerated rate.