The Dream

In 2014, as a junior in high school, I had a dream: to create a fighting game where the elements of the periodic table came to life to duke it out. Elemental Brawl was born.

The vision was ambitious for a 16-year-old: 37 playable characters (each a different element), 25 stages, 30 music tracks, 40 items, 100+ achievements, and 4-player LAN support. I assembled a team of talented artists and a composer, launched a Kickstarter campaign, and built a playable demo.

Elemental Brawl gameplay screenshot showing victory screen
Victory screen from the playable demo

The Characters

Each element had its own personality and fighting style based on its chemical properties:

Oxygen was a gaseous fighter, utilizing small bubbles that formed into legs for amazing speed and agility. A fun-loving character but a bit of a hot head. Get it too hyped up and it would burst into flames, scorching all its foes!

Animated sprite of Oxygen character from Elemental Brawl
Oxygen’s animated sprite by Molly Heady-Carroll
Concept art of Oxygen character
Oxygen concept art by Noah Evans

Carbon was a nonmetallic brawler with a burning passion for the art of fighting. Carbon hit hard, jumped high, and launched small fireballs at enemies. When charged with enough energy, it would pressurize itself into solid diamond and launch into the sky with atomic force.

Animated sprite of Carbon character from Elemental Brawl
Carbon’s animated sprite
Concept art of Carbon character
Carbon concept art

We even had concept art for more complex characters like Iron:

Concept art of Iron character
Iron concept art

The Kickstarter

We launched our Kickstarter campaign on October 24, 2014, seeking $19,000 to fund the full development.

Elemental Brawl demo gameplay showing Combustion Consumption stage
The Combustion Consumption stage from the demo

The campaign raised $1,910 from 31 backers; people who believed in a high schooler’s dream. While we didn’t reach our funding goal, the experience was invaluable.

The Team

I was fortunate to work with talented people:

  • Noah Evans (Concept Artist/GUI Artist): A visual arts major at School of the Arts in South Carolina
  • Molly Heady-Carroll (Character Animator): An Irish artist earning her MA in Game Art from HKU in the Netherlands
  • Sean Pack (Composer): A versatile composer for film, TV, video games, and theater
  • Bryan Moore (Stage Artist): A SCAD graduate specializing in backgrounds and environments

Retrospective (2025)

Looking back over a decade later, did we make a polished, funded game? No. But we:

  • Built a playable demo from scratch
  • Coordinated a remote team across multiple countries
  • Created original music, art, and animations
  • Ran a real crowdfunding campaign
  • Learned what it takes to turn an idea into something tangible

The project taught me about project management, creative collaboration, and the gap between vision and execution. These lessons carried forward into every project since.