Thematic Substitute for the Earth Element?

[onipunk]

Golden Sun is one of my favourite games and I'm currently working on a game that has a similar elemental split to it. Each of the four characters is attuned to one of the classical elements, and for three of these that's not a problem. But when it comes to creating animations for the Earth element, I've run into a problem: there are barely any animations out there for Earth spells. I've found a few, and managed to create a few more by adjusting the colours of some ice spells in Photoshop, but there just isn't enough to furnish a full list of spells with.

So, I'm in need of some ideas of another element that could work synergistically with Earth without seeming out of place. I was thinking of using light spells, justifying it by using an in-story explanation that as the Earth element draws power from the planet and nature, and so nature needs light to thrive, earth mages can tap into the root of life itself and use light magic, but I'm unsure. It also has the advantage of the yellow-orange hue of many light animations being firmly within the colour palette I'm using for earth spells. Any thoughts, lads?

 

[S.Court]

In Chinese philosophy wood is considered an element, you can mix that with more nature based attacks animations with petals, roots, leaves or seeds maybe. You could even group even flora-based attacks with earth to create an element in a similar vein Golden Sun games do it with Thorn, Punji or Growth psynergies.

 

[onipunk]

In Chinese philosophy wood is considered an element, you can mix that with more nature based attacks animations with petals, roots, leaves or seeds maybe. You could even group even flora-based attacks with earth to create an element in a similar vein Golden Sun games do it with Thorn, Punji or Growth psynergies.

Yeah, I'd considered that but ran into the same problem - lack of resources. Earth, wood and flora are definitely overlooked when it comes to the people making animations for the community. Don't get me wrong, I'm ever grateful that they make animations for our use at all, but I wish there was more available for the less popular elements.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Considering if you have to use Fire-Air-Water-Earth;

Plant
Metal (Weapons/Armor/Shields)
Creature/Animal
Gravity
Sand/Sandstorm
Meteor (it doesn't make sense, some games do it, it doesn't bother me)
Screen Shaking

Just off the top of my head. Mix and match to fill your quota. However, you could switch Air and Earth with Light and Dark and still include elements of air and earth respectively.

 

[Wavelength]

Unless you're building a commercial game, I would say don't worry too much about if there's a lack of variety in your animations - using the same cels in a slightly different pattern is enough.

To slightly expand your library of cels to work from, you could scour the internet for free resources. For example, a google search for "animation sheets RPG Maker earth" yielded some useful results. I haven't confirmed the legality of these resources, but I assume that most or all are legal. Check the actual source webpage where the cels come from for a better idea. My friend @hadecynn's Animation Collections each contain a couple of animations that would work well as "Earth"-type spells either as-is or recolored, as well.

Finally, in addition to the 'Nature' and similar substitutions for Earth (which I do think are a good idea), I would add that 'Mineral' or similar could be a good substitute that might be easier to find or make good animations for. This would include rocks/boulders (recolored version of anything spherical) and crystals (recolored version of ice spells), and sand (recolored + resized versions of almost anything), in addition to being close enough to the standard "jagged rock", "dirt", and "dust" Earth-type animations that you could use both of them in the same class without raising eyebrows.

 

[onipunk]

@kirbwarrior Some of those would fit pretty well! I know there's, like, a few RTP sheets that could make decent plant spells (I think it's the Curse sheet) and I could easily edit a few sheets to make sand-themed attacks. I like gravity too, that ties in pretty well! And unfortunately the first member of the party is a wind mage and I already have all of her spell animations done, so swapping them out for dark would be strange at this point.

@Wavelength I really like the idea of mineral and crystal attacks, definitely gonna look into that! There's plenty of ice spells out there to edit and they shouldn't be that hard to tweak! Even a simple recolour and a texture overlay to make it look more like it's refracting light rather than a shard of ice would work well enough, cheers for that idea!

Cheers for your ideas guys, I especially like the crystal idea so I think that mixing and matching all of these ideas with that will yield good results. Thanks!

 

[Kes]

Finding and picking suitable animations is not a game mechanic. If you have enough ideas for alternative animations I can close this. If you are looking for more, I shall have to move it to Resource Requests.

Please let me know which you want.

 

[onipunk]

@Kes - My bad, I put it in here because it was less about finding animations specifically and more about finding something that would narratively link with the mechanics of the game, but I can see that's a bit of a nebulous connection. I've gotten what I need from the thread, so feel free to close the thread, sorry for the confusion!

 

[Kes]

[closed]IgnoreMe[/closed]