Lie, Cheat and Steal", and a game that was too fun to have been made in a professional capacity, as she put it. So, she joined the company to help the game out, and thus it became her game for that year's Independent Games Festival. Her involvement with the development of that game then went on to spark her interest in developing games of her own, and thus she and the members of her team left to start their own company, Redwood Game Labs. After working for around a year with one other person on another secret project, McLeish left that project to return to her home in the states and continue development on her own. After playing and playing and playing again with the idea of doing a game about a mage whose power comes from her ability to control the elements, she had an idea of making a game about elemental magic that would be fun, challenging, and fun. When she saw that Elemental was being developed by an online game company, Xsolla, she contacted the company's president and asked him if she could use the game engine. He allowed it, and then, he also agreed to publish her game and provide some funding for her to get started, so after a few months and a lot of work on her own, she presented her project to Xsolla to see if they would be interested in publishing her game. After a small discussion, the answer was yes. As with all of Redwood Game Labs' games, the development of Elemental lasted for about a year, with much of it being development and programming, though the art was done by herself and her brother. Her inspiration for the game came from a variety of places, including, amongst other things, fairy tales, fantasy books, and anime. Her biggest inspiration for the game's design was the game Fallout: New Vegas, as her games are often about powerful characters who must make difficult decisions with complex consequences, which she views as similar to a lot of the things that happen in the world that make up those kind of games. Release Elemental was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in November 2014. Reception Elemental was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival in the "Excellence in Visual Art" category. It also won "Excellence in Visual Art" at the 17th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards and was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 17th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. It was also nominated for "Game, Classic Revival" at the 16th Annual National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards, for "Best Indie Game" and "Seumas McNally Grand Prize" at the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, for "Innovation in Mobile" and "Excellence in Visual Art" at the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and for "Excellence in Design" at the 17th Annual National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards. Loz Blain of Kotaku gave the game a positive review, saying that she enjoyed the game and found that the game made her think about important issues. Blain also stated that the player's choices were never simple, so the player should not assume that one playthrough will make sense, as the game constantly changes based on the player's choices and past experiences. This caused her to think more deeply about the world she was in. This also meant that the world of the game would be different depending on the choices of each player. Blain did criticize the game, as she had issues with bugs, such as a crash bug and poor animation. Though Blain liked how easy the game was to get into, she did find some of the later puzzles to be frustrating, as they often required guessing. References External links Category:2014 video games Category:Indie video games Category:MacOS games Category:Single-player video games Category:Sega video games Category:Windows games Category:Linux games Category:Android (operating system) games Category:Video games developed in the United States Category:IndieCade winners Category:Exploration video games Category:Tower defense games Category:Unity (game engine) games Category:Xbox One games