Elements

Amulets, Enemies, Mineables, Mounts, Puzzles and Alpha Update! 📿
5 months ago – Tue, Jun 18, 2024 at 11:41:38 AM

Hey everyone! Just wanted to post an update showing some of the things we have been working on in the last month or so!

Ice Shield
We added an Elemental Ice Shield. As you upgrade the shield it will become more durable and covered in Elemental Ice. Below you can see the Legendary version. What do you think this shield should have for perks?

Gremlins
We added a new enemy type, Gremlins to Elements. These Gremlins are fire based, but may be found in other biomes as well. As you can see here they have a chance to give you a burn. What do you think of these guys? And are Gremlins a good name or do you have other suggestions?

Water Frotles
We started adding different elemental versions of our Frotles. We had these repainted a while ago by a very talented artist and I am still in love with the art. There will be a Melee, Shielded, Ranged, Throwing, and Magic version of these enemies.

Enemy Health Bars
Enemy health bars will now show up as the color of their main elemental type. This will give you a better read of their weaknesses, so you can decide on what weapon type and magic to use against them.

Stagger Bars
Some enemies can be staggered. If they can be, a stagger bar will appear under the enemies health bar.

FOV Slider
We started adding some menu options to ensure players can customize their experiences. Although we might not have every option during the Alpha, we wanted to make sure you have the ability to invert your camera and adjust the Field of View (FOV). Also, Ultrawide will be supported from the beginning. Are there any quality of life options you would like to see that will affect your experience with Elements?

Amulets
When you start your adventure you will get to pick one of three amulets; Nature, Water, or Fire. There will be amulets for each biome, but to start you will have a choice of these three. Amulets will act as pieces of armor and give you different passive buffs and perks. Nature will give increased armor and health regen. Water will give increased melee damage and critical hit chance. And fire will give you increased melee and ranged attack speed. Amulets can be upgraded and their inherent perks will increase as you upgrade them.

Throwables
We connected the consumables with the throwing system. You will be able to find throwable items in chests or around bandit camps. You will also be able to craft throwable items. I am thinking we need an original name for throwables that explode. Someone suggested “Boombs”. What do you think about that? Or do you have any other suggestions?

Shields as Weapons
In keeping with our ethos of giving players options on how they play, we have added shields as weapons. While shields have one of the shortest ranges, they also have one of the highest damages of all weapons. We still need to add weapon trails and sound effects to the shields, but we have them working and they feel powerful. Excited to work on Skills for the Shields. Maybe we can do a throwable shield for one of the skills? Right now, you cannot dual wield shields. Not sure if that is anyone's preferred weapon build?

Minable Minerals
We want to ensure that each biome looks and feels different. This includes the type of minerals and resources you can mine and obtain. While basic crafting and forging can be done with resources from any biome. If you would like to craft or upgrade specific elemental items, you will have to gather resources from that biome. We hope this will encourage players to explore new biomes.
Here is a video showing some updated mining. What do you think about the time to mine and the feedback? We have already made the “Health Bars” smaller, but do you think they should be removed all together? We are trying to find a good way to identify trees and rocks that can be mined, but also don’t want to be too intrusive to the player's immersion.

Fire Update
We have been tweaking the fire, trying to improve how it fits in the world. Which fire do you think looks better?

Mounts
We have been tweaking the speed and locomotion of some of the mounts, including the horse mounts. There will be close to 5-10 different horse types in the game. These will mostly be found in the world, but some might be acquired by doing certain quests.

Glider Trails
We are starting to add smaller details to the game like glider trails. We still need to make these a bit thicker, but we are excited to get them in there. What other details make gliders look and feel great?
 

Puzzles
We have been working on the base mechanics for one of our custom puzzles. With this puzzle we will be able to make many different variations by adding new elements and pathways and changing the block order. My 8 year old son helped me design the real life testing prototypes to test the puzzle before we made it in the engine 😊
We realize not everyone likes puzzles, so we are trying to find a balance between difficulty and frequency. Are you the type of player who loves solving puzzles or prefers to skip them if possible? What are some of your favorite puzzle types in games and ones that you think might fit in Elemythia?

Villages
We are looking to expand the area for the Alpha to include a small portion of the Dark and Fire Biomes. These are biomes that neighbor the Nature biome. We think it would be great to showcase how the same weapons work in different biomes. So we started blocking out one of the villages in the Dark Biome. What else does this village need to bring it to life?
 

We have also been working on some of the villages in the Nature Biome. We still haven’t decided who will reside in this village. What type of creatures could you picture here?
 

New Building Peices
Each biome will have its own set of building pieces. I would love to have different sets for each village, but that might be a bit ambitious. These pieces were originally intended for the Dark Biome, but after seeing them in game, they might end up fitting better in the Water Biome. I am thinking maybe the Dark Biome has more of a stone or old castle vibe. Or maybe a more creepy feel. What do you think?

Alpha Update
As the end of June approaches, we’re excited to share our progress. We are still aiming to get the Alpha version in your hands by the end of the month. However, there are still a few critical elements we’re refining to ensure a great player experience.

To reassure you that we’re close, we will be sending out Alpha keys before the month’s end. While you will receive the key soon, it could take a bit longer before you can start playing. You can add the key to your library and be ready to go as soon as we give the word.

Any potential delays in the Alpha release should not impact the rest of our roadmap. Our priority is to make your first experience with Elements exceptional. Delivering something great sometimes requires a bit more time than anticipated. As soon as QA resolves major bugs, you’ll be able to jump in. We want to ensure thorough internal testing to avoid giving you a broken experience.

If you didn’t receive the Wallpaper we sent out a couple months ago via Backerkit, please let us know so we can ensure you get your Alpha Key when we send them out.

Thank you for your patience and trust in us. We’re committed to delivering something amazing. And it’s so awesome to have others as excited about Elements as we are ❤️

Ice Armor, Ziplines, Enemy Improvements and Updated Roadmap 🗺️
7 months ago – Wed, May 01, 2024 at 08:47:50 PM

Hey everyone! I hope everyone is doing amazing. Here is an update showing some of the things we have been working on in the last month.

Ice Armor
We have just finished the Ice Armor. We wanted to ensure the armor had lots of protection from the cold, while still allowing for some decent mobility. We are thinking about buffs for equipping entire Elemental sets. For Ice Armor this could be increased movement in the snow For Nature Armor this could be increased Health Regen. Let us know if you have any ideas?

Ziplines
We added ziplines to help the player get around more quickly and to allow for traversal to some unreachable locations. Some ziplines may require “fixing” before you can use them. After all, some may not have been used for thousands of years. We still need to add some sound and particle effects, but here is a quick video of a zipline in action.

Debuff System
We just finished the debuff system. Debuffs will be tied to weapons, armor, and magic. These include things like; burning, poison, freezing, etc. Each Element will have a specific debuff, some Elements will have multiple. Some gear will offer resistances to certain debuffs. For example; water is resistant to fire, fire is resistant to nature and nature is resistant to water.

Enemy behavior
We think the way enemies and NPCs behave in games can be the difference between a world feeling bland or immersive. We have been working on some behavior characteristics for our enemies.
Enemies will now notify others around them when they hear or see the player. We can modify the notifying radius around the enemy to customize it for different enemy types.

If enemies are patrolling a certain area they will return to their patrol or activity once you get far enough away from them. You can see this in the clip testing out the bouncy mushrooms. 

These are a few more things that make enemies seem smarter and more life-like. Are there any “smart enemy” memorable moments from other games that stick out to you? 

We have been working on some of the mini-boss encounters in the Nature Biome, like this wolf creature encounter which is still very much a work in progress. Some mini-bosses will be found randomly in the world, while defeating others might be part of a quest. We also modified the explosive arrow particles. Much more satisfying.

Wildlife
We added new wildlife to some of the areas in the Nature Biome. These add life to Elemythia and start to bring the world to life. Adding sounds to these creatures also adds to the atmosphere and allows you to track them using your ears. What creatures are you most excited to see in Elements?

Remnants
Remnants are a new enemy type that you will find roaming Elemythia. I don't want to spoil too much of the backstory about them but here are a few words from the lore;
"Over time, Remnants have become corrupted by the chaotic energies of the elements, losing their original purpose and gaining a malevolent will of their own. Now, they roam the land, drawn to areas of elemental conflict or residual elemental energy."
Keep your eyes open for these. They are powerful but drop rare resources when defeated.

Wallpaper Key Art
We recently started distributing the first Wallpaper Key Art. There is a link to a dropbox folder with 4k and Ultrawide versions. I always like options myself, so I added versions with and without logos. Once we have new wallpapers we will add them to this folder. Feel free to tag us on social media with your PC setups if you decide to make the wallpaper your desktop background. If you didn't get the link please message us on Kickstarter. This is a good test distribution to ensure everyone gets their Alpha codes when the time comes.

Alpha Update / Roadmap
Below is an updated Roadmap. As you will see, targets have been pushed back by 6-8 months. So, you will get your hands on the Alpha before the end of June. We have accepted that it won’t be as polished as we would like, but we know you have waited long enough, and that your input will help us identify and focus on bugs that may be game-breaking and things that make Elements fun to play.

It’s never fun having to push dates back, and even less fun having to tell excited backers like yourself that it is not quite ready. We are learning how hard it is to factor in issues that may arise during game development. We really appreciate your patience. We hope you know how thankful we are to have your support and that we are working as hard and as fast as possible to create a world in which you can adventure and get lost.

Looking forward to your feedback on anything you care to comment on about the update. Thank you ❤️

Crafting, Chests, and Ice Weapons 🧊
8 months ago – Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 01:37:34 AM

Hey everyone! Just wanted to post a quick update showing some of the things we have been working on in the last couple weeks. 

We started diving into some more Elemental Ice Weapons. These have some light Nordic and Himalayan influences. We want you to feel the chill of the cold when you equip Ice Gear. 

I've also included some images of the initial sculpts to try and show more of the process and the different modular pieces which will be added to the base Rare tier to get the Epic and Legendary tiers. Let me know if you enjoy seeing early sculpts.
 

Ice Bow

Ice One-handed Sword

Here is a quick test of the One-handed Ice Sword in game. Right now when enemies block it will stop any combos. This is more of a Souls-like approach to combat, but I think we are going to allow continuation of combos even if blocked. What do you think?

Ice Quiver

Ice Arrow

Level Design

We have been working on some of the different sub-biomes, villages, and areas in the Nature Biome. Here is a quick video showing an area in the Rainforest area. Right now this area still needs a lot to really bring it to life, but we wanted to share to get your feedback on what else it needs?

Multiplayer Loot

We have been tweaking how loot will work in Elements. Because many people will play Elements split screen we wanted to make sure no Loot Goblins lost out on gear from chests found in the world. We made gear player-dependant. So, instead of racing to a chest to be the first to get the gear inside, you can rest assured your gear will still be there. Are you happy to not have to worry about someone taking your gear or are you always first to the chest?

Crafting Stations

There will be 4 different crafting stations; Crafting Bench, Forge, Cooking/Potion Station, and Seed Maker. At the Crafting Bench you will be able to craft tools and weapons made of wood. The Forge will allow you to refine metals and craft weapons that require more refinement. The Cooking/Potion Station will give you the ability to cook meals or make potions that can give the player boosts or buffs. You will also be able to experiment with ingredients to find new recipes. The Seed Maker will take plants, fruits, and vegetables and turn them into seeds you can plant. 

Once unlocked, these will all be accessible in your own homesteads. We think this will cover all of the players' crafting needs. Some games have 10 different crafting stations, but we wanted to streamline the crafting a bit more so there are less stations to manage. What do you think about this? Do you like having more or less crafting stations?

We have reworked the crafting station, adding a crafting queue, the ability to see what is currently being crafted, and some other quality of life features. Below is a video of the new crafting system. The UI is still temporary and some of the items are placeholder, but I wanted to show the new system. What do you think?

Here is a closer look at the Seed Maker model.

We will be adding more to the Cooking/Potion Station to make it look more like somewhere you could cook and create potions, but here are 4 stations currently.

Alpha

Although we were hoping to send out Alpha Keys today, we still have some more work to make the Alpha a great experience for all. We don't have an exact date at this time, but please know we are working as fast as possible to get your hands on this early version of Elements, to get your input and help us make Elements something amazing. We will have an updated Roadmap for you in the next update.

Thank you all for your continued support. 2024 is going to be a big year for Elements and we are so thankful to have you along for the ride ❤️

Just over 1 Year since you backed Elements! Thank you ❤️
9 months ago – Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 07:10:23 AM

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since we were funded and this community has grown. We read all your feedback and it’s helping us create a better experience. We truly wouldn’t have made it this far without your support. Thank you. 

Here are a few things we have been working on :)

Water Weapons
We have been working on some of the water weapons. For inspiration we looked at some Polynesian and Atlantean references. We have finished the Water Bow, Quiver, Shield and Magic Staff.

Bow

Quiver

Shield

Magic Staff

Gliders
We added a few new gliders to the game. Every village will have a glider for you to collect. Each with their own attributes. Some will float longer, while others might be faster, and another might use updrafts more efficiently. Which villages do you think these gliders are from?

Mounts
We have been tweaking functionality and animations for some of the mounts including the Wolf Mount. We are thinking this mount will have increased speed in snow. Do you have any other ideas for abilities?

Portals
We added some new functionality to the build system. We added functioning portals. Each time you unlock building in a village you will get a Gateway Orb, allow you to construct a portal. This will allow fast travel between any village you have gained the ability to build at.

Universal Storage
We also added Universal Storage. These storage chests will be linked so you can share gear no matter which of your homesteads you are at.
 

Destructibles
Let’s be real. We all like breaking stuff. We recently added destructibles so you can break things and grab anything that might be hiding inside. This will also open up some new gameplay opportunities like hidden rooms and passages. We still need to add  some better sound effects and physics so they will fall if something below them is destroyed.

And of course we had to add exploding barrels. I’m still not sure why bad guys always have exploding barrels so close to them in most games, but I have a good idea on why they do in Elements ;)

Alpha
We are getting very close to having an Alpha we are proud to put in your hands. But we still have a lot to do. As always, we remain optimistic but we don’t want to let anyone down if we don’t hit March 21st Alpha date. It’s important that we don’t push the team too hard and that we get some internal testing completed on the Alpha Build before you help us squash bugs. This will speed up development overall as we won’t have to catalog bugs that we already know about.

We are looking at the Alpha as an important development milestone and where you can have the most impact on development. Once released to backers  will continue updating and patching the Alpha until it eventually becomes Early Access. 

Moving forward I would like to pose the idea of updating backers more frequently so you know exactly where things are at and feel more connected with the project. Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in or if the current update cadence is fine?

Thank you for the ongoing support and for helping to lay the foundation for Elements. ❤️

Lots of Updates, including an Alpha Release Date!!
10 months ago – Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 07:49:36 PM

Happy New Year and thank you so much for your patience! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and are off to a great start in the New Year. We wanted to give you a few updates on what we have been working on for the past two months.

Armor & Weapons

Dark Armor (Rare) 
Here is the Rare version of the Dark Armor. I am really happy with how it turned out. We wanted to keep the armor light to enable increased movement and attack speed while leaning into some of the influences of the Dark Biome.

Are you able to notice any of the references we noted for concepts? As you may be able to tell, the Dark Armor hints at a Wolf type creature for the Dark Guardian. We are working on concepts and ideas for the Dark Guardian now. What do you think about this armor?

Dark Magic Staff (Legendary)
For the Dark Magic Staff we wanted to bring a lot of Dark influence as well as some Light influence as well (the lore to be revealed later in the game). I was extremely happy with how this staff turned out. There are so many beautiful little details. What do you think of this Magical Staff?

1h Ice Axe (Legendary)
This Ice Axe was influenced by some Nordic designs, but we also wanted to have Ice play a big part in the design. As you upgrade the weapon, the Ice really takes over this Axe. I think it's pretty cool ;) 

Magic Abilities

We worked on some new Magic Abilities. One of which being an Ice AOE attack. Spells will progress as the player uses them, potentially getting larger and more powerful. How does this seem as a base spell or do you think it needs something more?

Skill System

This is a quick preview of the Skill System in Elements. As you defeat enemies with a specific weapon type equipped, you will progress that weapon. As the weapon progresses you will unlock Specials Moves associated with that move set. 

These Specials will be movement based, but may also include magical elements. They are meant to augment your magic abilities, giving you the opportunity to use them while in melee (or ranged when using a bow) combat. 

In this video we are showcasing the Staff Skills. Specials will be on a timed cooldown (longer than the showcasing video) and can be changed depending on your playstyle or needs. After you fully progress a weapon type you will unlock a Super. Supers will be more powerful, larger attacks or they may offer increased movement speed, attack speed, health regen, or a combination for a specified duration. UI is still a work in progress and some of the icons are placeholders.

Do you have any ideas for Super moves for a specific weapon?

Environment/Level Design

The world of Elemythia has a lot of different locations and we really want to make each biome feel very different from the next. A lot of factors play into this, one of them being the environment. We made lots of progress roughing out most of the biomes materials and foliage. 

We wanted to ensure that creatures could potentially be tracked. This could also come in handy when trying to figure out an enemy's patrol path.

Monuments

We started adding backer names to the shared monuments that will be hidden throughout the world. I think it's important that there also be some type of gameplay link to these monuments. Each monument will hold a shard or crystal that will only be found within these monuments. If you find and collect all of them you may be in for a pleasant surprise :) What do you think the reward for finding them all should be?

Mounts

We added a new Panda mount to Elements. At first we didn't know if the Panda would be an enemy or a mount, but a lot of people seemed to want a Panda mount so we couldn't resist. The IK and animations still need some tweaking and we are thinking we may give the Panda mount the ability to knock down small trees. What ability do you think it should have?

Inventory UI

Our goal with the inventory UI is to keep it clean and simple, while still showcasing the awesome gear you will find in Elemythia. Some of the icons and models are still placeholders, but this should give you a good idea of what to expect and how it will feel to equip gear. 

You can pick the individual items or open your "bag" to show all your gear for quicker equipping. There are also slots for your mount and glider. Yes, there will be multiple gliders :)
Can you think of any improvements to make it more player friendly?

Dialogue and Questing

Because progression isn't linear in Elements, a huge part of how you progress will be based on who you talk to and what quests you accept. Each village will have Main Quests and Side Quests. Main Quests will progress and game forward, while Side Quests will allow you to dive deeper into Elemythia and possibly earn gear or items that will help you progress faster. Make life easier, or more fun. 

Because of the depth of the quest system and how intertwined with dialogue it is, we had to build and customize the system to our needs. This gives us more flexibility on how to start or complete a quest, giving the player lots of options.

Most NPCs like Vendors or Blacksmiths will also have quests you can accept or you may have to interact with them to progress a quest from another NPC. Some of this UI is still a work in progress and the voice is placeholder. I've already noticed some of the animations and transitions need to be smoothed out and the background behind the main text needs to be darkened to contrast the text. Are there any other improvements you can think of?

Farming/Building

We added bamboo as a new wood source to the Air Biome. Yes, we know it is actually a grass ;). Some building pieces and gear in the Air Biome will require bamboo that can only be found in the Air Biome. Bamboo will regrow faster than most trees (if you chop it with a magical axe), how fast is the question?

We have been adding new objects and creatures to the building and farming parts of the game. We are focusing on core things we think the player will need, then we can add more later. We added chicken coops which will be required for chickens to lay eggs. There won't be any maintenance or upkeep on your building or creatures. 

Creatures will drop items daily. These items can be used in crafting, cooking, trading or selling to some vendors. What building pieces and creatures do you want to see?

Alpha Update

Now, for what a lot of you have been waiting for. We apologize for the delay. With game development, especially on a game where we want to give the player tons of freedom, there are often unknown hurdles. For example, work on the save system and split screen (multiplayer) testing has taken longer than expected. 

With so many variables, It is really hard to confidently predict gamedev milestones, but we are confident on setting an Alpha release date for March 21st. We know this is longer than we expected and predicted, but we hope you know that we are putting all our effort and love Elements. And we are so glad to have you on this journey with us.  

Leading up to March 21st we will be doing internal testing and setting up an Alpha branch on Steam. The keys Alpha Backers will be sent will be a different branch from the Early Access version so progress will not be carried over. The Alpha is an opportunity for you to tell us what you like and don't like and to help us shape the game.

For the Alpha backers, we can't wait to get you playing Elements to help us improve on the world and gameplay loop. We have opened up a "Kickstarter Alpha" channel in the discord where anyone with a role of Alpha or higher will have access. This will be the best place for the most current updates.

We all hope you had a wonderful holiday and are as excited about 2024 as we are. As always, we appreciate your support and patience more than you know ❤️