<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="2.0"><channel><title>Elemental Forums » RSS Feed » Elemental Dev Journals Posts</title><link>https://feeds.feedburner.com/Stardock/Elemental/forum/513</link><copyright>© 2006 - 2026 Stardock Corporation. All rights reserved.</copyright><description>Recent Posts In Elemental Dev Journals</description><language>en-us</language><pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:50:37 AM -0400</pubDate><lastBuildDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:50:37 AM -0400</lastBuildDate><docs>http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html</docs><generator>Stardock Rss Generator v1.0</generator><managingEditor>info@stardock.com</managingEditor><webMaster>kwilas@stardock.com</webMaster><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541229</comments><description><![CDATA[ Lots of cool things going on. We&rsquo;ve been reading the feedback closely as well as reviewing and fixing crash reports. Your posts are extremely helpful in narrowing things down.  So today we want to talk about the roadmap for Elemental: Reforged. We have two years (at least) of budget now. Thank you for all your support! So let&rsquo;s dive right into the near term:                        Version      What is it      When is it       1.02    Bug fixes, usability improvements, AI improvement...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/541229</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541229</link><pubDate>Tue, 07 Apr 2026 8:31:54 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-04-07T08:31:54-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Elemental Dev Journal #25: Spring Roadmap</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541159</comments><description><![CDATA[      Elemental: Reforged has just been released. And people like it. They really like it. But the question is, now what?  We now have a modern, 64-bit 4X strategy engine with extensive modding support. We've been quietly working on this for years. Nights, weekends, off the books. The &quot;1.0&quot; release was fairly arbitrary.  That matters because there's a difference between spare-time effort and having actual artists and engineers assigned. For the last few months, we got some. You proba...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/541159</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541159</link><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 8:29:13 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-03-30T20:29:13-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Elemental Dev Journal #24: Now What?</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541009</comments><description><![CDATA[      Introduction  Going to use this as a bit of a walkthrough.     I have created my character, Harlax. She is a Necromancer Enchantress belonging to the race known as Trogs, but that’s the name Men gave them. In the time after the Titans, they formed their own Empire known as Yithril. This is her story.  Beginnings  The world had been destroyed…     After her wanderings, she came across one of the few areas that could be cultivated; a seat for her future empire.     Her keen sense allowed h...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/541009</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541009</link><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2026 9:50:00 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-03-12T09:50:00-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #23: AAR - The Rise of Harlax</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541006</comments><description><![CDATA[      Because of course we also made a full-fledged RPG game inside of our 4X strategy game…  Let’s recap:  16 years ago we released Elemental: War of Magic. A ridiculously ambitious game that came crashing down because it couldn’t fit in 32-bit memory and all our dancing around this made the game incredibly unstable and required us to do terrible things to it to get it to work to the point you can’t even buy Elemental: War of Magic. The sequel, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, was greatly slimm...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/541006</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/541006</link><pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 9:50:00 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-03-10T09:50:00-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #22: Campaigns</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/540746</comments><description><![CDATA[ As we start to near the finish line, our focus has moved to bug fixing, AI updates and balance.   This is a delicate thing to get right.  It isn’t as exciting or flashy as the graphics update but it is what will matter in the long run.   Though, mark my words, there will still be  “that guy”  who will say the remaster didn’t update the graphics.  Below is Janisk (before and after).      Campaign before and after:          And of course the new portraits:      But  gameplay  is what matters an...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/540746</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/540746</link><pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:35:48 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-01-30T09:35:48</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #21: Of AI and Balance</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/540491</comments><description><![CDATA[      Happy New year!  We have been burning the midnight oil over here at Stardock to get Beta 3 out. Your support and enthusiasm is what drives us and we have been making the most of it!  So what’s in BETA 3 and when is it coming out?  Besides a massive list of bug fixes we have 3 main focuses:    The long awaited art overhaul    The campaigns    The AI/balance update    As many of you know, I don’t love early access. I no longer even buy games in Early Access. I wait until they’re released. ...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/540491</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/540491</link><pubDate>Mon, 19 Jan 2026 4:25:45 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-01-19T16:25:45-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #20: Preview of Beta 3</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/450703</comments><description><![CDATA[Greetings!  For those of you not familiar with our Elemental game universe here it is in brief:  Elemental is a fantasy world made up of many different civilizations vying for control the world. There is a great deal of history and lore to tap into and we decided to begin making games in this world back with 2010s release of War of Magic. &nbsp;Unfortunately, when it came out, it was pretty buggy and got some negative reviews. We fixed the bugs but the game itself was still pretty meh.  So...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/450703</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/450703</link><pubDate>Sun, 11 Jan 2026 2:11:25 AM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2026-01-11T02:11:25-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>War of Magic, should it be brought back?</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539943</comments><description><![CDATA[      Let me start out with a thank you! As some of you know, I was against doing an Early Access, especially one this early. The game was just so buggy and so many people these days think “Early Access = polished release candidate”, which is NOT what Early Access was ever supposed to be. But nevertheless, here we are. Despite how buggy and janky Beta 1 was, you guys stuck with us and we appreciate it.  This week I want to share with you what to expect in Beta 2.  Let me give you the high leve...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539943</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539943</link><pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 1:45:43 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-12-12T13:45:43-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #19: Preview of Beta 2</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539863</comments><description><![CDATA[     For those of you just joining us, Elemental: Reforged is a remastering and reimagining of the previous Elemental games all rolled into a single game.    Specifically:  Elemental: War of Magic,   Elemental: Fallen Enchantress  and  Elemental: Sorcerer King .  We are using  Fallen Enchantress  as the starting point for Beta 1. We ported it to 64-bit and gave it a new graphics engine, updated visuals, the crafting system and global inventory from  Sorcerer King , and a lot of new quests,...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539863</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539863</link><pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2025 8:35:02 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-12-04T20:35:02-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #18: Dynasties in Beta 2</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539699</comments><description><![CDATA[       While this game is a remastering of the Elemental games (War of Magic + Fallen Enchantress + Sorcerer King), we are also keen to make sure there is new content for players to enjoy.  With Beta 1, we did add a lot of new quests, units and items. But those kinds of things can be tricksy for an experienced player to know if they are new or just things that they didn’t see before.  The improved tooltips, UI, hot keys, etc. are probably not that noticeable to someone looking for something ne...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539699</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539699</link><pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:46:31 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-12-02T09:46:31</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #17: New vs. Remaster</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539644</comments><description><![CDATA[     As I write this, we’re putting together the first Preview of Beta 2. Beta 2 will have 3 major new changes:    Steam Workshop support for modding    First pass at localization    Dynasties    Let’s see where we’re at.   Localization    For Beta 2, we are going to focus on 3 languages: French, German and Spanish. This is because they don’t h ave as many unique characters as say Russian or Chinese. Baby steps.   For Beta 3, the focus is going to be on Russian, Chinese, Japanese, ...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539644</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539644</link><pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2025 8:22:33 AM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-11-26T08:22:33-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #16: The Road to Beta 2</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539543</comments><description><![CDATA[The original  Elemental: War of Magic  was not just “English-only”. It was hard coded into English in such a way to make it nearly impossible to localize it. Under the covers, the game and the underlying engine, Kumquat, uses char * everywhere. This means that all text is byte-oriented, single-code unit that only works nicely with ASCII. Even German is tough because of ä ö ü ß and so on.  And our code is full of toupper(myText) which can only handle A-Z. The code was full of sprintf().     I...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539543</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539543</link><pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2025 8:20:48 AM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-11-26T08:20:48-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #15: So viele Sprachen</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539418</comments><description><![CDATA[      Have you ever had a home project where you’re dealing with “imperial” units and “metric” units at the same time? The wrench looks like it will fit but it’s just…slightly different.  That’s the world of Elemental this past week. We have  War of Magi c,  Fallen Enchantress  and  Sorcerer King . Each of them have quests and goodie huts and units and 3D assets that are… almost the same, but not quite.  Guess what happens when you have a unit with just one more animation annotation than w...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539418</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539418</link><pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 7:54:13 AM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-11-06T07:54:13-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #14: In a Sea of Bugs</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539334</comments><description><![CDATA[ THANK YOU! We're shocked and grateful and humbled by the community response to Elemental: Reforged. In the first week since Beta 1 hit Early Access, we’ve hit   wishlist numbers and sales approximately 6X higher than our most optimistic projections. The game is already in the top 1000 overall wishlists.   When we started working on this a few years ago, we were just really doing this for ourselves.  A kind of therapy  .  So this has all been overwhelming in a good way.  Your support means I...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539334</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539334</link><pubDate>Tue, 04 Nov 2025 1:46:04 PM -0500</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-11-04T13:46:04-05:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #13: Overwhelming Response &amp; Technical Foundations</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539192</comments><description><![CDATA[I’m sharking around the office.  Because today is the day.  So far, this project has been handled by Stardockians working in their spare time: the same ones who made the original game 15 years ago. It’s a labor of love for us.  What I’m hoping is that we’re not the only ones who love this game and what it could be. That’s what Early Access will tell us. If enough people join in, I can justify bringing on more engineers, artists, writers, and others. We’d love to grow the team and work on t...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539192</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539192</link><pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2025 1:18:57 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-10-26T13:18:57-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #12: It Begins</title></item><item><author>wasabi_md</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539124</comments><description><![CDATA[The  Elemental  series is, by far, the most expansive that Stardock has ever made; most of it was barely exposed to the player base in our quest to reduce memory. This time, not only can we expose it all, we can enhance it and integrate into Steam Workshop.  The dated visuals of  Elemental: Reforged  do have one major advantage: It makes modding a lot more approachable and easier. Let’s take a look at what we have and what we want to do.   The Tile Editor Every cup, every barrel, every table...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539124</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539124</link><pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2025 3:00:00 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-10-16T15:00:00-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #11: Modding your own Fantasy World</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539004</comments><description><![CDATA[This Dev Journal covers what we  are  doing and what we are  thinking  of doing with  Elemental: Reforged . We want to hear your thoughts!   Change #1: There are NO premade characters Procipinee, Relias, Verga are still in the game, but they are no longer playable characters. We want this game to lean much more heavily into the sandbox, so you start the game by creating a character.       Change #2: You start out alone No entourages. You are alone.     The starting area monsters have been ...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/539004</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/539004</link><pubDate>Fri, 10 Oct 2025 7:20:08 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-10-10T07:20:08-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #10: Gameplay Updates</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538437</comments><description><![CDATA[The team working on  Elemental: Reforged  is essentially the same team (plus some new faces) that worked on  Elemental: War of Magic  16 years ago in 2009. Back then, my colleagues were mostly associate-level developers and artists, right out of college. Today, of course, they’re leads and normally distributed amongst various projects. It’s unusual for a project of this size to have multiple senior or lead developers on it, but we all desired the opportunity to show what we wanted to do with the...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538437</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538437</link><pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2025 7:30:30 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-09-21T07:30:30-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #7: Early Access and the Game Industry</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538706</comments><description><![CDATA[We are working on improving the visuals for  Elemental: Reforged . While we can’t get it to “AAA 2025” levels since this is a 2009-era engine, it’s amazing how far you can get only with stone knives and bear skins.     Since this is a Remaster++ and not a sequel, I think most people will understand if our goal is to make the graphics better.  New bullet point: Graphics now 25% less bad! But with modern hardware or even old hardware (by today’s standards), there’s a lot we can do with the old e...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538706</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538706</link><pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 2:30:00 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-09-19T14:30:00-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #9: Visual Progress</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538534</comments><description><![CDATA[ What 64bit means  2GB of RAM is enough In MY day, a megabyte was a lot of RAM, so when designing  Elemental , the 32-bit memory limit meant nothing to me. I knew what it was, but it was such a gigantic number (4GB, but 2GB in practice) that I didn’t consider the ramifications of the design. This was going to be a PC-only game, so what did I care?  Ah younger, naive me. I wanted to make  Master of Magic , but I wanted an RPG world where every unit, city, and being was unique. Every character h...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538534</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538534</link><pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2025 9:50:00 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-09-11T09:50:00-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #8: The Benefits of 64bit</title></item><item><author>wasabi_md</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538314</comments><description><![CDATA[The general philosophy for the Elemental games is that they are strategy games in RPG worlds, and part of this means that units could be designed and equipped like you would in an RPG. The one thing we couldn’t do for  War of Magic  or  Fallen Enchantress  was have crafting. We just couldn’t fit it. In Sorcerer King, however, we did add it, but we had to remove other things to make it fit. In a 64-bit world, we can have our figurative cake and eat it too.   Recipes and Ingredients Throughout t...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538314</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538314</link><pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2025 9:30:46 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-09-01T09:30:46-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #6: Crafting for Fun and Profit</title></item><item><author>wasabi_md</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538063</comments><description><![CDATA[ Let's Talk About 2010  I'm going to be straight with you -  Elemental: War of Magic  didn't look good in 2010, and  Elemental: Fallen Enchantress  didn&rsquo;t really improve on that. Time has not been kind to it.  The Elemental games were our first non-space game at Stardock. We'd been making  Galactic Civilizations  and publishing  Sins of a Solar Empire , and we thought "how hard could it be to make a fantasy game?" Turns out, pretty hard. Terrain. Animation. Magic.  The biggest challenge wa...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538063</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538063</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Aug 2025 6:16:20 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-08-24T18:16:20-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #4: Visual Uplift</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538148</comments><description><![CDATA[We like sandbox games. We are not interested in telling you a story. We  are  interested in you creating your own stories through gameplay, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have lore - lore that has published books about them and decades of development in them. Today, I want to share a little bit of the backstory for Elemental.  Note: minor spoilers mentioned .   In the Beginning There were the  Mithrilar . These were extremely powerful guardians with no native shape or substance. Placed in...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/538148</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/538148</link><pubDate>Sat, 23 Aug 2025 9:09:50 AM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-08-23T09:09:50-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #5: The Setting</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/537784</comments><description><![CDATA[ Let&rsquo;s start with where things currently stand at Stardock in our remastering and reimagining of Elemental.    We have ported the underlying engine and code base to 64-bit.    We have upgraded the graphics engine to DirectX 11.    We have brought over the Dynasty system from War of Magic (yes, this game had full on families, dynasties, and magical breeding).    We have brought over the crafting system and global inventory from Sorcerer King.    We have reexported the original textures at m...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/537784</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/537784</link><pubDate>Sat, 16 Aug 2025 9:47:14 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-08-16T21:47:14-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #2: Help Shape the Game</title></item><item><author>Frogboy</author><comments>https://forums.elementalgame.com/537933</comments><description><![CDATA[ How Fixing 15-Year-Old Code Finally Opens Elemental to the World  By Brad Wardell     August 2025     Localization: How to double your market size Here's a business truth that haunts game developers: English speakers represent only 40% of the strategy 4X gaming market. The other 60%? They're playing games in German, Chinese, French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and so many others.  For 15 years, Elemental was locked out of that 60%. That was because back in 2008, when we were developing the g...]]></description><guid isPermaLink="True">https://forums.elementalgame.com/537933</guid><link>https://forums.elementalgame.com/537933</link><pubDate>Fri, 15 Aug 2025 2:00:34 PM -0400</pubDate><pubDateParsed>2025-08-15T14:00:34-04:00</pubDateParsed><title>Dev Journal #3: The Great String System Overhaul</title></item></channel></rss>