Very soon we plan to release the very first Map Pack for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.  In addition to a new hand crafted map for every map size along with new stamps to spice up random map generation, it also includes the full Anthys map. A gigantic map that contains the entire known world of Elemental (at least, as of ~150 AC).

Fallen Enchantress at two weeks Fallen Enchantress has now been out two weeks. So far, we’ve sold about 50,000 units (give or take).  This is somewhat below Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion but, obviously, far far ahead of War of Magic during the same time frame.  The biggest obstacle has been reviews.  It’s hard for niche titles (and make no mistake, fantasy turn-based PC games are niche) to get coverage. There’s only so many reviewers to go around a...

Only 2 days left until release I don't want to sound sappy here but we have been really touched by all the support we've gotten from you guys over the past couple of years that we've been working on this. One of the motivations for making so-called "niche" games is that we really enjoy our tight knit communities.  We enjoy hanging out with you, listening to your ideas, arguing different game designs, etc. Earlier today, we went "gold" which simply means 1.0. I like to...

As someone who has played PC strategy games since, well, since there's been PC strategy games to play, the thing that often stifles me is the late game. Often times, strategy games will bog down due to sheer wait time between turns or just collapsing under their own weight in micro management. Fallen Enchantress attempts to solve this through the use of a multithreaded game state architecture.  What this means is that while you're taking your turn, a bunch of different things ...

There's only a week left! That's just so hard to believe that we're almost there. Looks like there's going to be another public update tonight. They want to test out some installer improvements and...well since they were doing that, we snuck in some tweaks, fixes and I ninja-checked in some AI improvements. The team that started Fallen Enchantress includes virtually everyone who made Galactic Civilizations II (and expansions).  It's been a real joy seeing the team ...

One of the changes we've made for the final public build is that we've greatly reduced the costs or raising and lowering land. Now, you can't use these spells to create mountains or make islands. That's not their purpose.  What they can do, however is create shorter routes through mountain regions (lower land) and connect players to other parts of the world that aren't normally accessible (raise land). This will become a particularly big deal after release when we ...

(this is going to be long…but here we near the climax of the story of the making of Fallen Enchantress ). In the beginning… So as some of you know, my day job is President/CEO of Stardock.  I founded the company when I was in college to help pay for school – until I could get a “real” job.  Not surprisingly, I was unable to find a real job and so, I’ve been “stuck” here for the last 20 years. I’ve even put my resume on that fancy paper. You know, the textured kind? No l...

  Who can ever forget the epic battle shown at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring?  Sauron the Maiar was able to wipe out hosts of men and elves in a single swing.  So terrible and powerful was he that he single handedly kept the armies of the last alliance at bay. And yet… There is a balance. Because what most people don’t realize is that the power of Sauron seemed great only in relation to his foes.  Some time in the past, the host of Nume...

With any luck, we will have Beta 5 for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress ready to go out this week. We’re very excited to hear what you think of the changes as we move into balance/polish/bug fixing/AI refinement/content mode. Kael will have a change log up as we get closer. Stay tuned! Due date is currently September 20.

Fallen Enchantress has random events. It’s just that there aren’t many and the odds of one showing up in a given turn are in 1/10,000. So as we get ready for Beta 5, which is all about bug fixing, polish, and balance, we are finally starting to add a lot of new random events.     This is the part I should probably mention that any monkey can make a quest. You do need the powerful tool known as notepad. That’s how I’m doing it. It’s just XML and i...

This next week we are hoping (but not promising) to put out the 4th beta of Fallen Enchantress.  Beta 4 will be focusing on overall gameplay with special attention to the underlying city mechanics and user interface.  We expect this beta to last approximately a month at which point we’ll be releasing Beta 5 which will be all about balance, fixing any remaining bugs, polish, etc. Here’s a video I did yesterday that shows how the start of the game has changed:   ...

It’s tough to make a modern game look good at “low” resolution.  But we try our best. Here are a few screenshots of a work in progress build running at 1024x768. I’ve also posted a video on Tumblr. Visit http://draginol.tumblr.com .  That’s where I’ll be posting “rougher” stuff that marketing wouldn’t generally want to be widely disseminated but lets those really interested in the game see what we’re up to.

Greetings! It’s been awhile since we’ve put up an update on where things stand.  So without further delay, here are some answers to questions we’ve received recently: When will Beta 4 come out? The best I can say is “This Summer”.  It definitely won’t be out in June but might make it in time for July. What will be in Beta 4? Beta 4 focuses a great deal on the civilization aspect of the game.  Specifically, the way cities are constructed. A third prime resour...

Stardock’s Jon Shafer has a great article on game design that has been spreading like wild-fire around the Internet. With regards to the strategy genre in particular, restrictions on unit movement is one of the best examples of how limitations can make a game better. The inability of land units to enter water is why ships are so valuable – and just plain cool. Gaining access to new units with unique ‘powers’ is a major motivation for many players. Just like in economics, scarcity is w...

Greetings!  We haven’t done a FAQ in awhile so here we go: Q: Is Elemental: Fallen Enchantress an expansion pack to Elemental: War of Magic? A: No.  Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is a stand-alone game. It exists in the same world and is a 4X strategy game, but beyond that, they are very different. Q: How much does Elemental: Fallen Enchantress cost? A: It’s $39.95.  You can pre-order it now and join the BETA. We plan to provide some additional good...