Elements

Alpha Release Date - Jan 17th!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 11:53:57 AM

Appreciate everyone’s patience! Steam flagged the build for some installation issues (also reported by our internal testers), and a few game-breaking bugs have been identified during testing. Currently, about 10 people are testing the game, and some have encountered problems. I think it’s better to address these issues now rather than release it to 2,500 people and risk widespread frustration.

We’re actively working on resolving these installation issues and fixing the game-breaking bugs. I know you’ve all been waiting literally years for this, and we’re committed to making it right. We’re aiming to have everything ready for release by Friday! Because it has already been approved as soon as we hit release, if you have the Steam key added it should populate in your library.

I'll send another update Friday to remind everyone!

Closed Alpha is Pending Approval!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 01, 2025 at 05:27:00 AM

We're excited to announce that the first build for the Closed Alpha has been upload and is pending approval 🎉 We didn't factor in the holiday and the need for approval as it is the first upload to this branch, so we are patiently waiting!

This is a huge milestone for us, and we’re thrilled to share this early build with our incredible backers. Please note that this Alpha is still a work in progress—there’s plenty missing and bugs to squash, but it’s a great starting point to gather performance analytics and invaluable feedback from you, our patient and dedicated supporters.

We ran out of time for internal testing, so internal testing will be happening in conjunction with backer testing. As a result, you may encounter bugs or issues that get patched quickly. Be sure to check for updates regularly or set Steam to update automatically. Because we’ll be patching often, please note that things like saves might break. This first test is focusing on systems, performance, and overall feedback, and we’ve kept a lot of things unlocked so you can dive in and test them thoroughly.

Moving forward, we will be continually updating the Alpha and sharing patch notes to bring you more gear to find, more quests to do, more enemies to fight, and more things to build. Your input will guide us as we expand and refine the game.

If you’re experiencing performance issues, please let us know what platform you’re using so we can continue optimizing. Additionally, not all tutorial widgets have been added yet. If anything is unclear—such as controls or how systems work—don’t hesitate to ask in our Discord, and we’ll answer as quickly as possible.

We kindly ask that you do not stream or share content from the Alpha publicly. Feel free to share your thoughts, screenshots, and videos exclusively within our private Discord channels.

The team will be taking the day off to recharge but will update on Kickstarter and Discord as soon as the build has been approved!

We hope your New Year is off to a great start 💚 2025 is going to be an amazing year for Elements!

December 2024 Update - Updates and Alpha
over 1 year ago – Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 10:26:40 AM

Hey everyone! Thank you for your patience and support! Let’s dive into the progress we’ve made and what’s next!

Earth Shield

We’re excited to reveal the Earth Shield! Designed with the essence of the Earth Biome, its sturdy design symbolizes resilience and protection. Soon it will be ready to be wielded in game—perfect for blocking and bashing. What do you think?

Runes

The Elemythian alphabet and number system have come to life! We’ve crafted 3D models for these ancient symbols. These will be scattered across the world, adding to the immersive feel of Elemythia’s lore.

Nature Gate

Throughout the world of Elemythia, you’ll encounter monumental gates guarding secrets—new areas, powerful bosses, or unique gear. Our goal was to make these gates feel truly grand and awe-inspiring. Do you think we succeeded?

Villages

We’ve been hard at work bringing some of the major villages to life. Each village is designed to feel unique, intuitive to explore, and functional for players. We can’t wait for you to experience their charm and personality.

Climbing & Ladders

Ledge climbing and ladders have been part of Elements from the beginning, but until recently, they didn’t work in split-screen mode. We’re thrilled to share that they’re now fully functional and more refined, allowing seamless multiplayer exploration. Not everything will be climbable, but we plan to identify climbable ledges with a different color or a "painted" texture. If you have any other ideas on ways to identify climbable ledges we are all ears!

Multiplayer

We’ve made important progress in multiplayer, including the implementation of multiplayer saving.

Mining Improvements

Mining has received some valuable updates! Now, every strike on a mineable resource will yield a portion of the material. Need just one stone? Hit it once and you’re good to go. This streamlines resource gathering while maintaining flexibility.

Water Armor with Perks

The new Water Armor is now in the game, complete with perks! Each piece grants faster swimming and deeper diving capabilities, letting you explore underwater areas previously out of reach.

Armor Sets

We have been working on customizing some of the lower-tier armor sets that you’ll encounter throughout your journey in Elements. These sets will be scattered across the world, giving you plenty of opportunities to collect and mix-and-match them as you explore. Let us know which set you’re most excited to uncover!

Sneakers

We’re excited to share a first look at the custom sneakers made exclusively for Nyah and Beckett! These stylish starting shoes perfectly reflect the siblings' connection to the Light and Dark elements. While these sneakers won’t offer much in terms of protection, they’re functional, lightweight, and uniquely designed, they ensure our heroes hit the ground running—literally! What do you think of the designs?

Tree Planting

You can now plant trees, transforming the landscape around your homestead and throughout the world. Need a specific type of wood? Plant the seeds, grow the tree, and harvest it for your crafting needs. This feature not only enhances customization but also adds depth to resource management.

Alpha

We’re thrilled to announce that the Alpha for Elements will release before the New Year! This is a major milestone for us, and we can’t wait for you to explore the world we’ve been building.

No Streaming or Sharing, Yet

That said, we’re kindly asking all backers to refrain from streaming or sharing content from the Alpha until we’ve had the chance to polish it further. This will ensure that when Elements is shared with the world, it reflects the vision and quality we’re striving for. 

There will be over 2500 Backers jumping into the Closed Alpha. To get everyone to sign a NDA would be quite the task. We will have an agreement/reminder pop-up before starting the game. This will remind you not to Stream, or Share any footage. 

As soon as Elements is in a better state we will drop the No Streaming/Sharing request and you will be among the first to publicly show Elements in its Alpha state.

Release Date

For those of you who signed up as Apogee Testers, the Alpha will be coming in the next few days. Keep an eye on your inbox. We would have loved to have internal testing last a few weeks, but we have run out of time and want to ensure everyone who backed at the Alpha tier or higher gets their hands on the Closed Alpha before the New Year.

Key Goals for Alpha Testing

This Alpha will serve as an introduction to the world of Elements and a chance for us to identify and address major bugs. It’s a significant step toward our eventual release, but will still have lots of bugs, and missing content.

Reporting Bugs
Reporting bugs and issues will help us prioritize and squash them. We would love it if you could report these bugs in Discord https://t.co/2lbf96ROqt, specifically in the private bug-reports channel. If you don’t have access to these channels please post in role-requests.

Important Note
The Alpha will not include major progression or the full experience. It’s focused on systems and mechanics to ensure the foundation is solid. This is just the beginning, and your feedback will directly shape the next steps in Elements’ development. If you are looking to "complete" the Closed Alpha, you may want to wait until we have more of the progression systems fully implemented.

We will start with a smaller selection of weapons and gear and push updates regularly. This will mean new gear, areas and points of interest to explore, new enemies and bosses, and of course bug fixes.

We are treating the Closed Alpha as a small taste of what’s in store for the Early Access release. We are very excited and naturally a little nervous to hear what you think. We wish everything was more polished, but you have all waited long enough to jump in and see what we have been working on.

Thank you for your patience and support. We couldn’t do it without you! Our hope is that you can see, hear, and feel what we are working towards. We value you all your feedback and look forward to hearing what you think.

This is a big step for Elements, and we’re so grateful to have you on this journey with us. ❤️

October Update - World, Steam Deck Testing and Team Expansion 🎮
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Oct 09, 2024 at 09:44:07 AM

Hey Everyone! Sorry for not updating earlier, and thank you for your patience.

Elemythia World Update
Below is a screenshot of some of the Nature Biome, a large part of the world we’ve been working on. The Nature Biome is about 1/8 of the map. The map is quite large, but I think the strategic placement of landmarks and points of interest will make navigation easy. We already have options to toggle the minimap and compass on or off, so those who want to rely solely on their sense of direction and clues from NPCs can do so. Those who prefer a little more guidance can use the map, compass, and minimap markers.

Companion Textures
We updated the Companion with some hand-painted textures. The Companion will play a big role in guiding you through the world. We still don’t have a name for this little guy other than "Companion"...

Water Armor
We’ve been working on the Water Armor, which has some Polynesian and Atlantean influences. It’s still a work in progress, but we wanted to share some in-progress screenshots. What do you think so far?

Random Chest Open Animations
We’ve added a system that will randomly choose an animation when you open a chest. We plan to add more animations as we go. What games do you think have the best chest-opening animations?

Runes
We had some custom runes created, and I think they really add to Elemythia’s unique look and feel. These runes will mark points of interest or locations where you need to bring keys to unlock additional areas.

Monument Update
We thought the monuments would fit better into Elemythia if we masked the Stone Keeper names in the Elemythian language. They will be displayed in native Elemyta until you interact with the monument, after which the names in English will be revealed.
We also added some functionality to the monuments. Now, once you find a monument and unlock it, you’ll receive a special reward. One idea we had was to provide a legendary crafting ingredient that, when combined with others found in that biome, would reward the player with a special piece of armor or weapon. Do you have any other ideas?

 Run Animations
We’ve tweaked the running animations for the main characters. These aren’t necessarily final, but they have a lot more bounce and spirit to them. What do you think?

Double Jump
We’ve been working on the double jump, though it still needs some refining. Our aim is for it to be fluid and responsive. We don’t want to gate player movement behind progression, so we’re considering the best timing and reasons for giving players the ability to double jump.

Quick Weapon Swap
We’ve added a simple function to switch weapons on the fly. Currently, it switches between your top weapons in terms of damage output, but we’d like to add a selection system. Possibly a weapon wheel or a system similar to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so the player doesn’t have to jump into the menu to change weapons. If you’ve played Breath of the Wild, do you like that system, or do you think it could be improved?

Throwable Destructibles / Pickups
We added the functionality to pick up most destructible items and even pets. We still need to tweak the pickup positions and hand placements. Right now, you can pick up items and throw them at enemies. This will tie into the investigation system we plan to add later. You can also pick up pets if they get out of their enclosure. The way an item is picked up will depend on its size. Heavier items will be carried in front, while lighter ones can be picked up overhead and thrown.

Choppable Bushes
We added choppable bushes that will grow back over time. These bushes can provide the player with cover and possible resources. The regrow time is currently set low for testing purposes, but we’ll likely extend this.

Cooking
Cooking allows players to create consumables and quest-related items. Each village will specialize in their own dishes, which players can learn and use in other areas of the game. We’ve just added a new cooking pit where players can craft recipes they know or experiment to create their own. What recipe would you like to see in the game, and what would be its benefit?

Quests
We’ve started adding more detailed quests for each village to test the functionality of the quest system and make any necessary tweaks. We want to give players options in how they complete a quest. For example, you could distract guards and steal their keys, or defeat the guards and take the keys—though doing so might alert other enemies in the area.

Alpha Update
We’re excited to share that we’ve made great progress since our last update! Stable builds are up and running, but we weren’t able to hit the September Alpha release as planned. We’ve encountered a few issues that we’re working through, including a bug where quests aren’t completing properly. While we could give you access to the world to run around in, that wouldn’t help us identify the key things that need to be tweaked and adjusted. Our goal is to make this Alpha as close to a playable game as possible, because the better it is, the more meaningful feedback we can get from you, our awesome community.

That being said, we know it’s an Alpha, and some rough edges are to be expected, but we’re focused on getting the foundational elements just right. Your patience has meant the world to us, and we truly appreciate your understanding as we push forward. You may see the Discord Bug Section start to come to life as we are getting closer to pushing the Alpha out to you ;)

In some exciting news, our team is growing! Until now, I’ve been the only full-time developer on Elements, but I’m thrilled to announce that our part-time programmer is now full-time, which means things are moving faster! Additionally, we’ve brought on a part-time level designer to help refine the game’s world and experiences. This marks a huge step forward for us, and we can’t wait to show you the progress we’ve been making. Here are some images from one of the new villages.

Here is some footage from one of our latest builds running on the Steam Deck. We still have some optimization and bugs to work on, but I’m happy to say it is already performing very well—and it will only get better! Next time I get some Steam Deck footage I will try and improve the video quality.

On a personal note, from Devon:
Elements is more than just a game to me. Balancing the expectations of backers and the limitations of the team isn’t always easy. I may have set timelines that were too ambitious, but I am striving to make up for any delays and deliver the game you’ve been waiting for. I’m already considering ways to make up for not hitting the dates I promised.

We’re still committed to delivering the best experience possible, and we’re confident that once we solve these final issues, we’ll have an Alpha that’s not just functional but truly fun and engaging for you to test. Thank you again for your continued support and patience—it means everything to us!

To everyone who took a leap of faith in me and Elements, it means the world to me. I hope one day I get to thank you all in person. ❤️

Full Time Game Dev Podcast
about 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 21, 2024 at 09:10:01 AM

Hey everyone!
Just wanted to post a quick update. I was fortunate enough to be a guest on the Full Time Game Dev Podcast with Thomas Brush. Thomas has launched multiple games and is currently working on a game called Twisted Tower. I have been a subscriber of Thomas’ channel for a long time, so it’s quite the honor to have a chat with him. Our chat talks about my background and how I got into game development, so if you are interested that video is here.