I don’t know about you but before I even think about buying a game or other piece of software I want know as much as I can about it.

I’ll start with screenshots and if possibly, watch a video on YouTube or Game Trailers and if the program or game is expensive (i.e. >$20) I’ll likely want a demo if I’m still not sure.

The problem I run into is that it’s hit or miss. Sometimes I can’t find a video at all. Othertimes it’s a “trailer” which doesn’t really show me what the game is really like. Sometimes a video is made by a player but it’s 15 minutes long and I just don’t have that kind of attention span.

So what the Impulse team decided to do is have two seasoned industry veterans (Jason Ocampo and Brian Clair) sit down and show off some of the games and apps that are on Impulse in short (i.e. 3 minutes or so) segments so people could see what they’re like. Nothing fancy.

Their focus is on games and programs that they particularly like even if the game is barely known. For example, while Star Trek Online is on there, so is Kitten Sanctuary.

If you don’t have Impulse, you can download it at http://www.impulsedriven.com.

Seven thousand years ago was the noontide of the mortals of Elemental. It was the age of the Magicians.

The world was filled with magic and wonder. Its power shines as a beacon across the universe and gains the attention of immortal beings that would become known as the Titans.

The immortals found a world lush with life and rich in magic. They soon set out to dominate this world and in doing so soon found themselves in conflict with the mortal Magicians and with each other.

The immortals were dominated by two leaders of terrible might. One was named Curgen; the other, Kir-Tion. Their great struggle had two terrible consequences…

Curgen used his great power to create new races of creatures that collectively became known as “The Fallen”.

Curgen’s rival, Kir-Tion, captured the gifted Tar-Thela and corrupted her, transforming her into the Emerald Sorceress. Using her unique power, she takes the magic of the world and locks it within the crystal shards that have been spread across the world. Unexpectedly, the shards become rooted in place.

With their source of power gone, the mortal Magicians were quickly swept away.

Then came the Channelers. Mortal beings who could channel the magic from the shards.  Some allied themselves with the Titans, others fled to bide their time in the far west.

In a final battle between Curgen and Kir-Tion, a league of mortal men led by Amarian III and supported by Tandis and his apprentice Talax are able to tip the balance preventing Curgen from opening a portal to the Titan home world. They succeed in destroying the Titans but at a great cost; the Cataclysm.

The world was broken.

Now…

Civilization is gone. Life hangs by a thread.

The only hope for Elemental is you.

Overview

Elemental: War of Magic is a turn-based strategy game set in a world of magic, warfare and intrigue. In it, players take on the role of a powerful sorcerer known as a “Channeler”.

Players found new cities, research new technologies, study spells, build a family dynasty, engage in diplomacy, fight wars, go on quests and much more as they strive to overcome all enemies and dominate the world.

Key Features

• Randomly generated maps.
• 10 Unique Factions (or create your own)
• Design your own Sovereign.
• Powerful Magic System.
• Tactical Battles.
• World Class computer AI.
• A rich, story-driven campaign.
• Strong single player sandbox mode.
• State of the art, client/server multiplayer.
• Low Hardware Requirements.
• Extensive Modding Support.

A Guided Tour

Basic Game Play Players start the game with their sovereign placed in a land that has been completely devastated. In that ruined world, they must build a civilization – found cities, research technology, build an economy, train soldiers, learn spells, and much more.  There are other factions trying to do much the same thing who have their own ideas on how the world should be ordered.  Victory can be attained through many different means: conquest, diplomacy, magic, or quests. The player decides which path in a given game has the best hope for success.

Kingdoms & Empires When setting up the game, players choose a nominal allegiance to either the Kingdoms or the Empires. The difference between the two in Elemental is where they draw their magic from – life or death. The Kingdoms use life magic in conjunction with the elemental shards to cast spells. The Empires use death magic. This has a very explicit effect on the world that is quite visible.

Cities of Elemental Only sovereigns can found new cities. When a city is founded, it is an outpost. Over time, as its population grows, it will be promoted to a village, then a town and then eventually to a city. Each promotion brings with it new structures that can be built, greater income and more resources to draw on.

Quests Players are not the only ones who can go on quests in the world. Across the lands, parties of adventurers are exploring dungeons, ruins, and abandoned castles looking for glory, treasure, rare items or all of the above. Some of these adventurers can be recruited. Other times the player, as the sovereign of their lands, must clean up the mess of these adventurers.

Designing your Sovereign Players can choose one of the 10 great Sorcerers of the world or create one of their own. When they do so, they can design how they look, what books of magic they carry, how powerful they are natively and even give them their own back story to share with other players via the Internet.

The Magic System Depending on their allegiance, players build up life or death mana that can be used, in conjunction with the elemental shards that they control (earth, air, fire and water) to cast spells. What spells they know depends on what books of magic they have along with which of the spells in those books they have learned.  Spells require mana as well as control of a certain number of different types of shards.

Researching Technologies After the cataclysm, much of the technological knowledge of the world was lost. While some of it is easy to restore (such as farming), other types of technology will take more effort to restore (advanced metal working for instance).

Dynasties As the sovereign of your Kingdom (or Empire) you will have the opportunity to get married and have children. In time, these children will grow up and potentially become great heroes for you to call on. Alternatively, players can marry their children off to other civilizations in exchange for an ongoing dowry (money per turn), a relationship bonus and a place in the line of succession in that faction.  Moreover, the off-spring of those children may return to you as adults to join your faction.

Diplomacy Conquest isn’t the only way to get what you want in Elemental. Players can also put time and effort to improving their diplomatic skills in order to obtain the technologies, resources and political outcomes they desire.

Unit Design There is no such thing as a “knight” in Elemental. Instead, players create their own classes of units (that they can call knights if they want). Starting with a peasant, the player gives them equipment and assigns them training to turn them into a soldier.

Warfare When two forces meet, players can choose to have those battles instantly resolve or go into a tactical battle mode to either watch the battle take place or control the action turn by turn. In battle, players can cast devastating spells, flank enemy positions, go for the high ground and much more.

Men & The Fallen Elemental comes with 10 factions that are loosely divided between the races of men and the races of the Fallen. The races of men are humanoid beings that naturally evolved on Elemental. The races of the Fallen are beings that were ultimately bred by the Titans long ago are are considered unnatural.

Here's our full list of medallions so far.  In Elemental, we're going to use medallions as part of the UI to help identify things.

A lot of users like using them for their avatars.  Here they are.

New: February 2010

© 2009, 2010 Stardock Entertainment. You may not use these other than for the support and promotion of Elemental: War of Magic(TM).

The Empires of the East are dominated by races of beings collectively known as “The Fallen”. These are beings that bred by the Titans of old to be better than the mortal men and dragons and other “natural” creatures of the world.

There are lots of Fallen creatures in the world. The Empires are led by beings that are both sentient and social (dragons, are sentient but are solitary).

The Empires believe in the justice of raw strength and strive to increase their power.

The Empires of the Fallen

 
The Empire of Umber (Urxen sometimes called “Goblins” in Common).

The Empire of Resoln (“Wraiths” in the common tongue).

 
The Empire of Yithril (“Trogs” in the common tongue)

The Empire of Magnar (“Magnars” in common tongue, sometimes called “Demon Elves”).

 
The Empire of Kraxis (“Krax” in common tongue, sometimes called “Blood Traitors”). They are the race of men who found themselves on the eastern side of the chasm after the cataclysm.

Phil Jones is “the guy”, as in THE go-to guy when it comes to climate change.

In an interview where he complains about skeptics “spinning” statements he ultimately reveals this:

"I'm a scientist trying to measure temperature. If I registered that the climate has been cooling I'd say so. But it hasn't until recently - and then barely at all. The trend is a warming trend."

You can read the whole thing here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511701.stm

Here’s the deal. IF human produced CO2 was a major factor in affecting global climate then there would be no “recent” cooling at all because CO2 production by humans has continued to steadily climb.

Moreover, it’s worth noting that the “recent” cooling that has been measured coincides with the precise time when people started really paying attention to the methods of data collection and started scrutinizing the data a lot more closely. 

It’s interesting, I get a lot of interview questions sent to me from the media that ask when such and such game will be on the console. The answer is usually: never.

I like my consoles. My kids like them. But I’m a greedy capitalistic bastard who wants to make money. And for the large scope strategy games I design it means the PC. 

If I was making an action game or a first person shooter, I’d likely make it for the console. The RPG we have in pre-production (very early pre-production) is targeting consoles as well as the PC.  So I’m not some sort of PC zealot. I just don’t see how I can make the kind of strategy game that *I want to play* on the console without gimping it to the point that it would ruin the game and thus be a financial disaster.

Let’s consider the specs on my favorite console, the XBOX 360.

It is essentially a custom PC running a 3-core PowerPC from 5 years ago. It has 512MB of total RAM that it has to also share with the ATI designed graphics system.

Now, eventually there will be a new generation of consoles that will be much more powerful than this.  But by that time, 64-bit PC games will start coming out that will be able to address many GIGS of RAM (virtual or real) resulting in games that can look lifelike AND have the kind of scope that PC strategy gamers tend to embrace (and from our vantage point more importantly – buy).

There are strategy games being made for the PC.  Supreme Commander 2 is due out shortly and Chris Taylor is certainly a more experienced game designer than I am so maybe he’s figured out a way to make it work.  But *I* can’t see how to make it work. Not for the kinds of strategy games I want to play.

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The Kingdoms of the West are dominated by races of men. While of one species, each race is substantially different from one another in terms of culture, capability, and philosophy.

The Kingdoms tend to believe in power of individuals to set their own destinies.

The Kingdoms

The Kingdom of “New” Pariden (“Paridens”, sometimes called “Amarians”, sometimes derisively referred to as Ama’nir)

The Kingdom of Altar (They are the same race as the Paridens originally from the east. Sometimes called Usurper Amarians)

The Kingdom of Capitar (“Capitarans”, sometimes called “The Diplomats”)

The Kingdom of Gilden (“Ironeers”, sometimes called “Merchants of Iron and blood”)

The Kingdom of Tarth (“Tarthans”, sometimes called the kingdom of something that would negatively affect our ESRB rating by Capitarans but more commonly referred to as the Rebels)

There’s a big Impulse announcement on Wednesday so we’re going to get bumped to the following Thursday. I guess we’ll just be that much more polished.

Sorry about the wait guys.  The Impulse announcement is pretty cool though. I’ve been watching what they have in store. It’s one of those “Duh, why isn’t everyone doing this already?” type things. But IT can’t handle us, this and the Sins of a Solar Empire update next week too.

On the bright side, there will be a TOOONNN of new game info coming out this week.