The main instrument of a master alchemist is not a cauldron or mortar as one might think. True, alchemists manipulate the Elements themselves! Many of you must have noticed that the map directions in Potion Craft are associated to the elements: e.g. Water is on the right and Waterbloom, being the main water ingredient, leads there; while Fire is on the left and Firebell leads there also. In the upcoming update, we decided to upgrade this system, making it more complex and consistent. To achieve that, we needed to review old ingredients and create a lot of new ones. To begin with, we collected all sketches and legacy ingredients that have ever been created.
The new system will have 8 “elements”, each one having its own direction on the map. Each element will also have a set of effects relevant to it.
- Up: air
- Right/up: magic
- Right: water
- Right/down: life
- Down: earth
- Left/down: poison
- Left: fire
- Left/up: explosion
Before we started working on new ingredients, we had divided existing ones into new elements to see what was missing. Some ingredients had to be moved into new elements. For example, it is more consistent for Terraria to belong to the Life element due to its green color. It will have to change the name as well while some other ingredient will become the basic ingredient for the Earth element.
We wanted each element to have 7 ingredients, one crystal among them. Moreover, each element should have a distinctive color scheme, e.g. Fire is yellow and orange, while Magic is violet and purple. When the task was clear, we started working on new ingredients and revising the old ones.
Air ingredients are mostly light, delicate flowers and herbs.
The Magic element combines flowers, fruits, and even root vegetables, but they all share similar purple-violet colors.
There is no more Watery ingredient than waterweeds! Moist and underwater mushrooms will do too.
Juicy green is the main feature of Life element ingredients.
Mushrooms and roots — what else could be closer to Earth?
Poisonous, ghastly colors and mushrooms of all shapes make up the Poison element.
The Fire element embraces various types of ingredients, but warm colors and a touch of hot unites them.
Barbs, nervous bends and vivid red color are features of the Explosive element.
Some ingredients, being processed skilfully, should give an alchemist an opportunity to make way on the map in any direction. We decided to make them iridescent.
So here is what we came up with finally: 8 elements, 58 ingredients and an infinite alchemical potential! We still need to draw it all though. By the way if you wish to know more about the process of creating new ingredients, please, read our previous Devlog (#15). There is some fascinating stuff there!
We are actively working on the new system of Elements and new ingredients right now and we would love to hear your thoughts on them as well to know what kind of ingredients you would like to see in the game! New ingredients also need names, thus we will be happy to hear ideas from you!
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