News Archive
August 20, 2021: I've released an updated version of E2. There isn't much in the way of new playable content... just Sequoia's cave, the Convent of Resurrection, the town of Natesboro and the horse race. However, the new version includes many enhanced features that make the game a lot more fun and accessible, so check it out! Changelog here.
August 17, 2021: Welp, that about wraps it up. Unsure if I'm gonna jump straight into E5, or explore some other avenues first.
August 16, 2021: Thank the good Lord, done everything on E4 but the Features section. It'll require me to rustle up some new material, so I was just sort of delaying the inevitable. But I'm very happy to have something to work on again, and I look forward to giving the last three installments equal treatment and branching out to expand my horizons. I hope you'll be with me! ^_^
August 12, 2021: Finally did the About, World, and Music pages for E4. The easy stuff... and it was tedious enough. :(
But hey, I'm gettin' back into this! Give me time. I'm considering other avenues as well. Exciting times ahead!
With more love than ever before,
~ Nikki
August 5, 2021: I'm still around. I figured it would be best to add the content I uploaded to my Facebook page to this site, as well. It could reach a lot more people, for starters. It may just take a little time to implement, is all. Plus, I can put music samples and more of my writing on here, too. :)
But this site might not be only about Elements anymore. I have other ideas, other interests, other things to say. This is my personal website above all, and Soul Catapult refers not only to concepts confined to the "E" series, but the collective elevation of the human mind and spirit at large. And if I can accomplish this by any means, that's a huge plus!
Keeping the content of this website confined to my excruciatingly slow progress on the E2 RPG was simply damming up the creative resources I was so desperate to release. That's why I started releasing content pertaining to the other installments, as well... and now those shackles are being broken entirely.
So I'm at it again! You with me? I hope so. Anyway... hang tight, and stay eccentric! ~.^
- Nikki
~ July 9, 2021 ~
Sylvester, man of many faces
Looks like I decided to keep my promise of only updating this site in "J" months, after all. I was getting so fed up just posting stuff about Haine... I've been focusing more on my Facebook page recently, including the addition of Elements series art and other information.
Anyway... here's to tomorrow! E2 remains on indefinite hiatus, but I'm not totally closed to the idea of resuming work on it someday. :)
~ January 19, 2021 ~
Horse race! The apples speed you up, while the land mines set you back.
Howdy, partner. Welcome to the wilds of Haine, site of the longest developmental drought in history. I had this race in mind for a very long time, and was happy I could bring it to life despite the few snags I hit during its creation. Hope to have more to report soon! ;)
~ November 29, 2020 ~
Sorry if I sounded a little flat in that last update. It was actually quite nostalgic to compile the gallery for E3... the emotional waves hit me when I first started putting together the character page, listening to the same music as I was when I originally created the drawings (around 2004). Those were some of the best years of my life, and it shows in my work.
I still want to do the same for the other installments, and I still want to finish E2. I have done a tiny bit of work on it, but nothing truly substantial. However, I'm always thinking of fun new features and other enhancements, like the ability to toggle overlay effects on or off with the press of a key, and bronze/silver/gold medals for the Party Ball records:
When you obtain gold medals, Chibi will confer special awards, like the Chicken Award for running from lots of battles, or the Butterfly Award for conversing with lots of townspeople. Each award holds a special function; for example, the Butterfly Award lets you negotiate with enemies and completely avoid encounters if you so choose.
I would love to be updating this site with stuff other than darn Haine. That was part of my frustration before... someone just casually visiting could get the impression that Elements is a Western or something. Maybe someday soon, that will change!
~ September 7, 2020 ~
The E3 Gallery is finished. Yay.
~ August 30, 2020 ~
Added Lai, Nevena, and Dia to the Gallery for E3. Also added the Epilogue to its Story page, and a few lines of introduction before the first paragraph. I had always planned on these things and only just now remembered them... am I ever glad!
~ August 21, 2020 ~
E3's World and Story are done, so all that remains is to slap up the Gallery page... then I can finally go crawling back to E2. >_<; It's possible that I could add some of the screenplays I wrote, but they'd need reformatting, and that might be a big pain. "Galacian General Grant," in particular, consists of over 250 KB of pure, raw text... and believe me, that's a lot of text! The entirety of E3's Story page, as-is, amounts to 50 KB for comparison. That would be on the "small" end of my old writings.
Well, if nothing else, this venture has taught me that the never-ending variety of game design is the only life for me! Even so, I don't think it's a bad thing to have a website to showcase my work, since the games themselves take so long to make. I may come back and update the other installments' sections in the future. If you'd like that, be sure to let me know! :)
~ July 28, 2020 ~
Just quickly updating to say that only the World, Story, and Gallery pages remain for E3. About, Features, Characters, and Music are already active. I've been publishing as I go along without saying anything just to save myself the inconvenience. Doing this has made me miss game development a bit, so I guess my ingenious strategy is working after all. Ha ha ha.
Of course, some stuff might not make sense without the context of World and Story (like references to locations and events), so... I'll get back to you on that. ;P
~ June 25, 2020 ~
The song of my own heart
The floodgates are open! Slapped up (very) preliminary pages for each installment in the story... more to come at any time. You will finally see for yourself the crazed passion that has driven my existence to this very day. Expect oodles of heart-rending biographies, some of my own intimately personal anecdotes, and lots of intelligent reading. Each subpage will be updated as I see fit, and I'll let you know if there's anything new to report right here.
And now I want to humble all that I am and thank the two people who always stood by me, who never stopped believing in me: my whole world, my everything, my mother and father. I would have no one, I would not have made it without their unconditional love and support, their warm kindness and loving acceptance. Thank You, God, for giving them to me.
I love you, Mom and Dad! I hope I can continue to make you proud with all that I do.
~ June 20, 2020 ~
This is me, talking to myself
So I've decided that I'm only going to update the site in months beginning with the letter J from now on. Just kidding. I apologize for my absence and I'm honestly not sure anyone still cares, but... evidently, some part of me does.
I do have a couple new screenshots to post, though nothing terribly exciting, especially after all this time.
You want her in your party, don't you?
Tatiana doesn't seem too thrilled.
I was feeling strongly like I wanted to do more with this site. Just because progress on the actual game of E2 has been slow shouldn't mean everything else must be brought to an absolute halt. Like I wrote on the History page a long time ago, the message of my work is relevant at this time, and that it's been held up is frustrating.
I was thinking of releasing some Archival information for "future installments," including stories, character profiles and artwork. Because I have so much more to say, so much more within me to express. To confine that expression to the current installment, especially within a dry period could be counter-productive, and quite possibly the reason for said drought in the first place.
I've created a Contact page (that probably should have been there all along), so if you would, let me know what you think.
~ January 9, 2020 ~
Improvement
I'm sorry I haven't updated the site in so long.
I've written a piece explaining the situation.
You can read it here.
~ July 10th, 2019 ~
Sylvester and Kayla join the party!
I'm okay. Moreover, Elements lives! Didn't mean to scare anybody or anything like that. Just please don't be alarmed if further updates are more erratic. Rest assured, this is what I'm doing, even if I habitually disappear for months at a time. :P
Anyhow, Sylvester and Kayla will join the party in the town of Natesboro, on the island of Haine. As you can see, they espouse a Western motif, like Nathan and Trevor in the first game. Will Sylvester employ his Roundhouse Kick and stare enemies into submission? Or will Kayla blow them away before he even gets the chance to do anything? You decide!
In the original story (that is, "Archival E2" before it became a game), the islands of Haine and Alavon were joined together, like Fiyara and Glymac, so the player was able to visit Haine and recruit these two characters far earlier on; a hint of this remains in some NPC text in Nanabash. Kayla was originally the one who captured monsters (with her lariat), instead of Raya. This would mean you'd have the ability to recruit monsters much earlier in the game, which probably would've made more sense from a design standpoint (instead of having to backtrack for all the monsters in Alavon, Winstar, and Cambria). But I felt, from the perspective of the story, that it was better for the Haine arc to be pushed back. That's why I shifted the monster-catching ability to Raya; it wouldn't even be implemented yet, otherwise. Besides, the early game of E2 is busy enough as is! XD
So here's to swifter progress from here on out. As always, no guarantees! But I give you my love, nevertheless. :)
Hugs and kisses,
~ Nikki
~ March 28th, 2019 ~
Thank you kindly for permitting me this hiatus. The donation thing was a bust, but don't feel bad or anything like that. Just two very good friends were kind enough to oblige me, and I'd just as readily give it back to them.
Admittedly I've been dealing with a lot lately, and I needed time to fall back and reorganize my approach, as the current one wasn't really working for me. I might have been making "good progress," but behind the scenes my life was falling apart. Anyway, I can't imagine having gone on without the insight I've gained. Growth in suffering, and all. But as it turns out, my own work was there for me all along! And so was God.
When I return, things will be different. But one thing will never change: the passion I have for the mission I was put on this earth to accomplish. To whom it may concern, a tool is a tool. It's not about the tool, it's how you use it. I've always made use of the most basic tools at my disposal to facilitate my self-expression, because I personally feel that they are enough for me. I do not have extravagant needs, nor does my work demand extravagant resources (except perhaps my own time).
In any case, the future has quite frankly never looked brighter! So you just look forward to it, and I'll do the same. Promise?
With all my love,
Stay eccentric! ~.^
~ March 7th, 2019 ~
This is all Manny & Jorge's fault
So I figured, even if there's nothing new to report, I could at least post just to let you know I'm still alive. And as you can see from the whacked-out screenshot above, I'm in the mood for a few confessions. So this happened because the Green color scheme of the Party House uses the same tileset as Manny & Jorge's Newsstand, and when I made that, I overwrote the blank tile that allows the carpet parallax BG to be visible... then neglected to check back at the Party House to make sure it didn't screw anything up. Which it did. Sorry about that! Any color but green still works fine, though. The kicker is that green is the default color for the house in Winstar, so... it doesn't make a very good "first impression"! XD
There are a few other glaring issues of which I've made note:
- There's a graphical quirk where the overlay for the teleport map remains while on the world map (and elsewhere). In most cases this can be fixed by using Teleport again to refresh the display.
- The fireballs in the corridor leading to Fire Shard B in Castle Dragonheart don't really move any slower on Easy Mode (like, 15 frames of a second... worthless!).
- Captured monsters have fairly low stats and are hard to build up. Of course, I've since rectified this, but it's not been integrated into the current release.
- Lala can learn Explode from the Land Mine, but the Enemy Encyclopedia doesn't show it.
- I've been told, though was unable to replicate it myself, that there's a glitch when exiting Sigil Scramble that sticks you in a dark void with nowhere to go. If this happens, just close the window and reload your last save. The menu is disabled, so thankfully you can't save your game like this and be stuck there forever.
...So if you were tripped up by any of these, I apologize. As a token of goodwill, I'd like to include a few samples of upcoming music in the game!
Underwater Theme
Triton's Tower
Town of Natesboro
~ February 7th, 2019 ~
Nothing new to report, so... here's Monique and Raya. Happy early Valentine's Day? I've actually been very busy conceptualizing matters pertaining to another installment, and while I'd love to share them with you, it would of course have no context in the current story and furthermore complicate/confuse things. But it should surely inspire new motivation to get there, on my part.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed or are still enjoying E2 so far, knowing that this crazy aimless open-ended plot must be brought to a resolution somehow... and a particularly mindblowing resolution, at that!
~ December 19th, 2018 ~
A humble tribute
~ December 1st, 2018 ~
The Son of Tuna
Today I would like to showcase a new area, the Convent of Resurrection. This place was mentioned by name in the original game, but you never ventured there.
It uses the same music as the shrine near Glymac where Maire learns Teleport, so combined with the dim lighting and soft glow of the torches, it exudes a solemn, yet serene atmosphere.
It's actually not mandatory to visit, though of course there are goodies to find and tidbits of wisdom to be gained by talking to the nuns.
Wait a minute, that statue... could it be!?
Yep, it's dear old Sybil. Her story was vaguely connected to this place in the original, so it was a great opportunity to create a new sprite for her in the new graphical style. Several other characters have gotten the "immortal" treatment so far (including Karma, though not actually as a statue), so why not sweet little Sybil, too?
Now this is interesting...
Th-This... couldn't possibly have any historical relevance, could it?
...Indeed.
One more thing:
Cloe is so mean.
~ November 3rd, 2018 ~
Chillin' at Sequoia's
So, what's to get excited about in Episode 5? A new Arena Challenge (finally!), further development for Maire, Simon the Lich in the flesh (err, bones?), Glymac University Park at long last, and... maybe even a new, better method of sea travel!? But don't hold your breath... not just yet. ;)
You'll actually enter Episode 6 when you reach the end of the new content, but there are no battles in the outer sea yet, and while you can sail all over the world now, you generally can't enter any new areas (with a few small exceptions), nor are there any new events in older areas... as they haven't been made! So while you'll probably be dying to rush back to Winstar and see what that's all about, it'll be of no avail for the time being.
But if you sail south of Glymac, to that lone shrine on the little island, you can grab a little something special for Maire. And of course, you can return to previous locations to wrap up any unfinished business. However, when you enter Episode 6, you'll no longer gain Friendship, Attribute, or Rune Integration points by fighting enemies, so beware.
I've also hidden one more little present for you somewhere in the world... see if you can find it! ;)
So if you're ready for some serious story, more of those lovely illustrated cutscenes and some of the most brutally difficult boss battles yet... dive in!
With my most fiery, passionate, eternal love,
~ Nikki
PS: When you get to the pharmacy in Fiyara, make as many Refreshers as you can afford; you won't regret it. Hyper Blends are also nice, but mark my words!