Welcome to the first of several 'Countdown' journals leading up to the release of Beta 0. While we don't have a firm date for the release (several folks need to recoup from weeks of Demigod all-nighters), we still plan on getting Elemental's first playable form into your hands for June!
Boogiebac (myself) holding a Resturaunt Meeting on City Resources
After seeing the amazing starships made by players (and reviewers) in GC2's ship designer, we decided fairly early to make customization a huge part of the Elemental experience. And while this has resulted in a longer tool-development period than GC2, the current results with those tools have been really exciting.
Case in point: our new Particle Engine (and coorisponding in-game Particle Editor). Obviously, since we're making a fantasy game, we would need some fantastic spells spell effects to get players excited. Besides spells, every weapon swung, item used, dungeon cleared, and acheivement acheived would require it's own special effect. To acheve this we (Ross and Paul) created the Particle Editor, a mighty in-game workshop for the artists (and players) to create effects with.
We put the final few touches on version 1 of the editor last Wedensday and gave it to Akil and Dan (two of our artists) to create spells with. In just TWO DAYS, they had the tool learned and had created their first 4 spell-ready effects.
Beckon Home
A spell for the adventurer that just wants to get home to heal up. 'Beckon Home' sends any unit to a friendly settlement.
Flare
A ball of fire burns away the FOW and gies you full view of a selected part of the map. Flare uses both Fire mana and a small amount of essence. Think of it as the 'Eye of Sauron: Lite'.
Sublime Harvest
Feed your people with some magical rations! Sublime Harvest tops up a settlement's food supply, using both Earth mana and a pinch of your essence.
Pyrostorm
Burn away a section of forest or any unused Fertile Ground with Pyrostorm.
The in-game Particle editor, despite requiring additional up-front dev time, will allow anyone with a crazy spell idea to get their creation into the game easilly (then use the online Library to let them share it). Besides this, the final boxed game will have an Item Editor, Equipment Editor, Tile Design Editor (more about TD's later), the World Builder, and any other editors we can cram in 
Next week we'll talk about World Creation and the adventures you'll be going on! Till then, please send your good vibes to the Demigod team as they (hopefully) wrap up a very rough month.