By John Walker on November 12th, 2012 at 12:00 pm.
Here’s how to make me want to like your game: Fuzzy backgrounds and pretty music. Here’s how to make me want to not like your game: Replace a letter in the title with a number. But on watching I-Illusions’s trailer for, nrrgghh, Element4l, the former seems to be the winner. The puzzle platformer looks absolutely gorgeous, and more importantly, intriguing. And the music is just so very pretty. They even write the blasted 4 in a lovely font.
Movement appears to be controlled entirely by switching between your four elements, with fire propelling you, and ice allowing you to slide along, for instance. Here’s the first level from the game:
It’s due out some time next year. I want.
12/11/2012 at 12:08 Lukaspz says:
THI4F
12/11/2012 at 12:22 Lambchops says:
DRIV3R
12/11/2012 at 12:37 Atrocious says:
Left 4 Dead
12/11/2012 at 12:39 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
H4LF LIF3
two in one.
And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is still worse.
12/11/2012 at 13:16 The First Door says:
F.E.A.R. was pretty damn annoying too. ‘First Encounter Assault Recon’ was such a blatant attempt to make words fit an acronym you’ve already chosen!
12/11/2012 at 13:29 Atrocious says:
Don’t forget what they did with F.3.A.R. later.
12/11/2012 at 14:46 The First Door says:
Ugh, I totally forgot about that.
12/11/2012 at 14:36 Ian says:
GoldenEye Rogue Agent (sigh) did the same thing twith their “E.V.I.L” (sigh) artificial intelligence, as advertised on the box.
Sigh.
12/11/2012 at 13:57 El_Emmental says:
I twitched three times when I read H4LF, nobody should be allowed to do that… what have you done ? :O
edit: I should be named 3l_3mm3nt4l from now on.
12/11/2012 at 14:12 Teovald says:
I had to check wikipedia to get the signification of that one :
Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer and Robber.
It is indeed pretty bad… all this time I thought it was just their artists having typographic fun…
I still prefer S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to THI4F, F3AR or DRIV3R though
17/11/2012 at 01:59 particlese says:
Yeah…acronyms and letter substitutions generally annoy me, too. I therefore had quite the time with physicists’, but I laughed my head clean off when I realized our lab contained a three-high stack of Fiber Array Package lasers.
Looks like a good game, at any rate!
12/11/2012 at 13:02 golem09 says:
W4RF4C3
12/11/2012 at 13:06 TomxJ says:
Emm3nt4l
12/11/2012 at 13:10 Mitchk says:
Wip3out
12/11/2012 at 20:50 Popelove says:
“0x10c”, Yuck!
12/11/2012 at 12:12 kregg says:
I kept pronouncing the game as “element four l” until I read the first paragraph.
Now I feel stupid :(
12/11/2012 at 12:25 Lambchops says:
I feel they are the ones who should feel silly for putting the number in the name in the first place. Se7en was a brilliant film but it has a lot to answer for!
12/11/2012 at 12:40 Bluerps says:
Exactly. I think we should actually call these games (and movies) this way on purpose. Elementfourl, Sesevenen, Thiefourf, etc.
Maybe this way some future game developer, who wants to use an inappropriately placed number in the title of his game, will realize how stupid that is and think of something better.
12/11/2012 at 15:41 BirdsUseStars says:
Se2en
12/11/2012 at 16:52 Dances to Podcasts says:
It goes back much further than that. I blame Prince.
12/11/2012 at 21:31 rei says:
Here’s Vonnegut in 1962:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21279/21279-h/21279-h.htm
12/11/2012 at 12:37 Atrocious says:
I read the same and wondered about the occult meaning of “Element for I”. It’s kind of natural to read 4 as “for” and although it’s unnecessary, I can understand replacing “for” with 4. Replacing single characters with numbers is just stupid.
12/11/2012 at 14:39 Skabooga says:
Ha, I did the same thing, Kregg, and was wondering why John was hating on it so much. But then my perception switched, and it all made sense.
12/11/2012 at 16:59 brulleks says:
Same here. Or ‘Element 41′ at first glance.
12/11/2012 at 18:19 Baf says:
My first reading, until Mr. Walker told me different, was “Element Forty-One”.
Which would be Niobium, apparently.
12/11/2012 at 21:28 benkc says:
My exact thoughts.
13/11/2012 at 00:57 Fearzone says:
“Darn it! Stardock took our name! Now what are we going to do?”
12/11/2012 at 12:13 LTK says:
Element four-L, huh? Looks like a lot of fun, but I daresay it could use a bit more colour.
12/11/2012 at 12:16 Squishpoke says:
I’m not a big fan of artsy-fartsy generic 2D platformers, but I gotta say that looks pretty fun. Almost reminds me of Sonic the hedgehog, the way that little circle-square zooms around.
12/11/2012 at 12:23 Harlander says:
Element4l sounds like a relational database driver implemented in LISP
12/11/2012 at 12:24 Cytrom says:
It looks nice.. although this is like the 4th or 5th indie game with this exact same graphics style, and the gameplay didn’t look all that interesting.
12/11/2012 at 12:30 mikmanner says:
I’d rather this aesthetic over pixelart and chiptune
12/11/2012 at 15:13 Koozer says:
This is the Instagram phase of indie devs.
12/11/2012 at 12:26 mrmalodor says:
13375p34k is still cool, right guys? Right?
12/11/2012 at 12:39 Atrocious says:
There is no replacement for p and k? I am d154pp01n7.
14/11/2012 at 21:16 Yar says:
13375|>34|<
12/11/2012 at 12:30 D3xter says:
Why is everyone writing it Element4l, which looks like Element4I instead of Element4L like is obviously displayed 3 seconds into that trailer?
12/11/2012 at 12:34 Harlander says:
You’re right, that sounds much less silly… …?
12/11/2012 at 16:33 D3xter says:
What exactly is silly about it? I haven’t seen people complain about Borderlands 2 or Diablo III etc. regarding their names or the use of Roman numerals, so I don’t see where this “Anti-numbers fetishism” comes from.
It just indicates that there are 4 Elements at play.
You might as well complain about “4 Elements” while you are at it, it’s on Sale on Steam today: http://store.steampowered.com/app/47000/
I was just saying that people writing it “Element4l” make it look like an I from Ignatius instead of an L like in Lane.
12/11/2012 at 16:50 Atrocious says:
Sorry, your examples don’t make any sense. What should be wrong with “Borderlands 2″?
Roman numerals are numerals after all. Unlike numbers artificially replacing letters.
“4 Elements” is also ok, because it’s about “four” elements – not about “A Elements”.
People write Elelment4l because that’s how it is written. The youtube videos have “element4l” in their title and the video description literally says “Element4l”.
12/11/2012 at 12:33 mikmanner says:
This looks like it could be a Nifflas game
12/11/2012 at 12:39 antoniodamala says:
AWMYGAWD SOOOOO CUUUTEEEE :33333
This seem quite a nice game about a L33CH tofu.
12/11/2012 at 12:47 Kinch says:
I think the name’s quite nifty considering there are 4 elements and you get to play with all of them.
Not everything is meant as l33t speak.
How about you lot go about making your own game and call it whatever you like. ;)
12/11/2012 at 12:56 Atrocious says:
“Whatever you like” sounds a bit too generic to me.
“Elemental” would transport the message just as fine, imo.
Anyway, the game looks cool. I’ll probably get it for my girlfriend regardless of the name. :)
12/11/2012 at 13:39 haowan says:
Fluid1ty
12/11/2012 at 13:56 Pliqu3011 says:
Elementfourl?
Elementforrel?
Elementforelle?
12/11/2012 at 13:57 JD Ogre says:
Huh. From the name, I was expecting a sequel to “4 Elements”, which is Steam’s daily deal ($1.99 for the next 4 hours and, despite being stuck at 800×600, actually a pretty entertaining game).
12/11/2012 at 14:03 Squire says:
Now I feel sorry for the guy who made Gish, he’s released it in so many “Bundles” I have about five separate copies.
Despite having an extremely stupid name, Element4L looks like it took the core concepts, made sure the levels have no “down-time” and it has a better flow to it because of this.
You can see what I mean comparing the above trailer with this play-through of some Gish levels [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRsqid3SWs0]
12/11/2012 at 14:51 kaaj says:
Thanks man… While I like Gish very much, element-four-l is a completely different game. While the graphics & music of element4l seem nice, its focus lies on gameplay mechanics and controls. We needed to write a tutorial, just because 50% of the beta-testers had problems moving forward. :-)
12/11/2012 at 14:39 Lanfranc says:
Everything can be excused if you use a nice typeface.
17/11/2012 at 02:05 particlese says:
Indeed! As testiment, it’s one of the main reasons I survived using an [anonymous popular telephony device] on business abroad a while ago.
Also: TYPEFACE
12/11/2012 at 14:50 The First Door says:
The trailer didn’t really sell the game to me very much. The first level play through, however, made me want the game quite intently. I hope the focus on keeping your momentum up continues through the game, because it looked like a cross between old Sonic and Nimbus which definitely a good thing!
12/11/2012 at 20:58 SelfEsteemFund says:
Looks wonderful, bloom & vignette is excessive though.. HAVE SOME RESTRAINT.
This is the kind of title that needs a level-editor. Also, Mind Tree was a great choice.
12/11/2012 at 22:27 domizindahawze says:
Emment4l? A cheese cube sim?
13/11/2012 at 11:16 El_Emmental says:
Yup, you have an unlimited supply of cheese cubes, and your objective is throwing the best chiquenaude so the cheese take that ramp, or land on that spot, granting that ephemeral but always nice “yeees !” feeling.
And since it’s a video game, you can also control the cheese shape/composition mid-air with your mind.
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