If you have finished reading the in-depth user manual for Fallen Enchantress, we have an extra bonus now available: The Hiergemenon (Heer Gem Eh Non). This is the lore book written by fantasy author Dave Stern that goes into great deal on the history of the world.  It’s been designed to be read online.  We think you’ll like it. Check it out here: https://www.elementalgame.com/hiergamenon

   

Fallen Enchantress got top billing today on Valve’s Steam despite not using Steamworks.  I plan to write at some length our experiences with Valve over the past year.  The short version is that Valve behaves with the kind of enlightened benevolence that earns the respect and trust of those who work with them. My personal opinion is that the independent nature of Valve (they’re privately owned) has allowed them to foster a company culture whose ethics and earnest...

Greetings! Today’s the big day. In fact, 2 hours from now 1.0 will go live. Now, to save yourself pain and aggravation please do the following: UNINSTALL the beta. Completely.  That also means go into the my games\fallen enchantress directory and rename it to something else (or delete it entirely). Edit: ensuring that \program files (x86)\stardock games\FallenEnchantress is also cleaned out is a good sanity check from after the beta. Don’t take any chances. Start from a...

In less than 24 hours, Fallen Enchantress will be released in its 1.0 form! I'm in a bit of shock just thinking about it.  Two full years of development. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone by. Around 1pm EST on October 23, the game will be released.  If you order it sooner, it'll be the last Beta (0.99) and it'll upgrade to the 1.0 version. I went around the office today to interview more people who worked on the game.  Here's their story: ...

As some of you may recall, when Elemental: War of Magic was released in 2010, no one was more vocal or more specific in the shortcomings of that title than QT3's Tom Chick. Stardock took the criticism of that game to heart when it "reimagined" a TBS fantasy strategy game that ultimately manifested itself as Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.  From the quick impressions: Stardock has really outdone themselves this time. If you like turn-based strategy games, if you like fantasy, even...

As some of you may recall, when Elemental: War of Magic was released in 2010, no one was more vocal or more specific in the shortcomings of that title than QT3's Tom Chick. Stardock took the criticism of that game to heart when it "reimagined" a TBS fantasy strategy game that ultimately manifested itself as Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.  From the quick impressions: Stardock has really outdone themselves this time. If you like turn-based strategy games, if you like fantasy, even...

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...

If you're a game developer, you're going to appreciate today's video. In most games (and by most, I mean, pretty much all) the in game art assets are pre-designed 3D models. That is, when you play Starcraft or Civilization or your favorite RPG, the "tiles" were put together with Maya or 3D Studio or some other modeling program. The Kumquat engine, and therefore Fallen Enchantress creates its in-game assets through the Tile Editor (where the components were made with Maya and 3D...

Only 4 days left! So let's talk about..The Fallen Enchantress. Originally, we were going to have a button that said "campaign" and the user would play through it and that would be that.  But instead, we've renamed it "Scenarios" for two reasons. First, because we wanted to pave the way for additional scenarios in the future that could be added in without needing some "expansion pack". After all, the Fallen Enchantress campaign was created using the built in modding tools....

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 ...

Series of games with AI vs. AI. Special map (Arena) where each player has an equal shot. Game and Winner. Tarth (Kingdom) Yithril (Empire) Kraxis (Empire) Kraxis (Empire) Tarth (Kingdom) Gilden (Kingdom) Magnar (Empire) More testing to come..

When games come out, one of the things that helps them pass the test of time is modding.  It's a big deal to us and in 20 years of making games, we've never put so much effort into modding as we have in Fallen Enchantress. Here's a video of me playing with the map editor today which comes with the game. Elemental: Fallen Enchantress will be released on October 23rd. Visit www.elementalgame.com  to learn more.

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 ...