Swords & Soldiers Soundtrack Now Available

Last June Ronimo Games released their first commercial game: Swords & Soldiers for WiiWare. And fun was had by all!

Now that the dust has settled, it turns out people really enjoyed their time with Swords & Soldiers! Metacritic was kind enough to calculate how much fun people had. Their conclusion was that people had about 84 funs with the game! And that's just some numbers. Numbers by critics. We've also seen lots of words. Words by gamers. And most of those were very positive as well!

But we didn't make Swords & Soldiers completely by ourselves. We had help from the handsome guys at Sonic Picnic, who composed a great soundtrack and created a lot of neat sound effects. They even agreed to have us come over to their studio and record our voices. So the next time you're submerged deep into the happy cacophony that is the Swords & Soldiers audio, think of those nice guys at Sonic Picnic.

And now they've decided to make extended versions of the songs in that great soundtrack commercially available. And to celebrate, we're giving away one original song for free! You can find all the details right here:

http://www.ronimo-games.com/SwordsAndSoldiers/html/Soundtrack/

Together we'd like to thank you all for your support. To show you we really mean it, we've asked Olga to help us out. The results are beautiful, I think you'll agree.

Source: Press Email

WiiWare: Swords and Soldiers Review

Real-time strategies are games that haven’t worked well on consoles. There are a number of factors that contribute to that, controls being one of them. So Dutch developer Ronimo Games decided to create a new, somewhat unique, take on the genre. Take overly complex controls, and toss them out the window. Remove the isometric views common with those games and turn them on their side, literally. Swords & Soldiers is the latest attempt to bring real-time strategies to the console market and they succeed where many have failed.

There are three races available to choose from; the Vikings, the Chinese Empire, or the Aztecs. Each race has a campaign that features ten levels for them to complete. Only the Viking Mission appears to be available from the start, but any campaign can be selected and played at any time. The missions are varied slightly, though each is essentially based around defeating the enemy’s base. There are a few other mission types that revolve around different objectives, such as defeating the enemy with limited resources or men, but these missions are few and spread out through each campaign. The campaigns should take approximately two hours to complete giving you about six hours of play total in the main game. There are three challenge missions that are available, one for each race that is based upon their various talents. The Vikings challenge mission is a berserker run where you get one berserker and a limit of mana to cast spells and the object is to see how far you can travel before you are killed. The Aztecs challenge mission is inspired by the Indiana Jones movie and you see if you can defeat a number of enemies on a map without killing your units littered between those enemies. The Chinese challenge mission is a survival mode where you see how long you can last before you are finally defeated.

Gone are complex systems of trying to select multiple units and move them around on a huge battlefield. Swords & Soldiersuses a two dimensional, side-scrolling map and simple controls to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Units are selected by simply pointing at an icon on the top of the screen. Resource gathering units will travel back and forth to the gold mines to refill your coffers. Mana, the only other resource in the game slowly regenerates on its own. Fighting units, once created, will travel towards the enemy only stopping when they’ve encountered something that can be fought. If they win, they continue to the next objective until they’ve completed their objective or they die. You can augment units with a small number of spells that are available to each army, though they will not greatly enhance them. Knowing what unit to build and the proper time to build them is critical to success in each of the missions. Ranged units need support of fighters, but single fighting units, also, cannot win the battle alone.

Every army has units that are unique to their respective race. There are basic fighting units, ranged units, and more powerful units. The Vikings have the best basic fighter, the Berserker who can kill any other unit single handedly, and the Aztecs win on sheer numbers due to the ability to raise slain warriors to fight again for their army. Each army also has a gold farmer who can do nothing but mine resources. If they are attacked they will die. The spells available to each race also vary wildly. The Vikings can cause units to go into a rage which will move them to the battle more quickly, and they can heal units that have been damaged. The Aztecs can rain arrows from the sky and poison enemy units. The Chinese can cause a unit to become temporarily invulnerable. There is also one extremely powerful spell available to you. It costs a large amount of your available mana, but has the ability to destroy a large number of units at a time.

Real-time strategy games survive on the strength of their multi-player and Swords & Soldiers is no different. Online multi-player is not available, but there is a split screen local multi-player option. This divides the screen in half lengthways. This option limits the amount of secrecy that you can do when creating your army and sending them to fight, but if players are equally matched the game can last for hours at a time. You have the ability to see what your opponent is doing and counter them in real time. There are a number of maps to choose from that vary in size and complexity. A few have multiple paths that can be chosen to increase the depth of the strategy available. All three races are available in this mode and can be selected by either player.

The game is quite stunning visually. The developers decided to use a cartoon style that is reminiscent of comic books that are popular in Europe. Each battle is preceded by a Batman like logo flash where the logo zooms in towards you and quickly disappears in the background. The armies are all colorful and vary greatly in appearance. Each map if full of small details and you’ll see something new every time you play. The individual units are all very distinct from each other and it makes it easy to see what you’re up against and form your strategy accordingly. Ronimo has done a brilliant job bringing a wonderful visual style to Wii. Battle animations are comical, things like tongues hanging out when units have been stunned, and gas clouds signaling when units have been poisoned will cause chuckles to erupt from your mouth. Ninja monkeys vanish and reappear on the opposite sides of units they’ve stunned.

Brilliant voice work highlights the enjoyable audio experience of the game. Units have a number of phrases that they utter once created and sent into the battle. Sword clashes, arrows flying through the air and explosions are in constant supply, but never overwhelm you. It’s very easy to know when you’ve been attacked because units will call for help. The only downside to this is that the in between battle sequences were not voiced, because the voice work that is present is brilliantly done. Its stereotypical sounds, walk the line of offensiveness and retreat back at the proper time. The music is appropriately action packed with percussion beats that get you in the mood for battle.

If you’re looking for a strategy game that hasn’t been done often, then look no further than Swords & Soldiers. Irreverent humor, catchy music and comedy are all brought to the fore. Nonsensical scenarios are the hallmark of the game. Vikings go to war to obtain giant peppers for their barbecues. The Chinese emperor sends his soldiers out in search of bigger and better toys. They’re all wildly odd scenarios to send soldiers to fight, but they fit perfectly into the context of this world, and suck you in. Insane unit choices, a great single player campaign mixed with solid multiplayer and a large number of options make for a game that shouldn’t be missed.

Final Score: 4/5

Review copy of the game provided by Ronimo Games.

Interview: Fabian Akker (Swords & Soldiers)

Nintendo’s WiiWare service has given us quite a few different types of games, and Ronimo Games, based in Holland, is about to add another unique experience to the list. Fabian Akker, co-founder of Ronimo, has joined us for a few minutes to discuss the upcoming WiiWare real-time strategy (RTS) game Swords & Soldiers.


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Can you tell us a little about Ronimo Games? How did you get started working on WiiWare?

Ronimo Games is small developer in Holland. We started the company with 7 friends after completing our study Game Design and Development at the art academy. During our study we created the original version of de Blob, which was picked up by THQ a few years ago. Last year, after we got the license from Nintendo, we started to develop for WiiWare.

Swords & Soldiers definitely has a unique style. What inspired you to do this game?

We are all huge RTS gamers, and after seeing the animation short "Super Moine," we thought it would be cool to make a side-scrolling RTS.

We love the art style for Swords and Soldiers. Full 3D graphics, or three-quarter overhead views, are usually the standard presentation in RTS games. Why did you decide to go with a 2D side scrolling style instead?

We try to create games that are a bit different from other games; of course a 2D engine is also a lot cheaper and easier to build with only 1 full-time programmer :)

What types of game modes will be available in the game?

The game has a whole bunch of different modes and settings:

3 story campaigns, 1 for every faction, 30 levels in total (this is already 6-8 hours of game play, if you are an experienced gamer)
3 different challenges:
The survival challenge, in which you have to hold off waves of units and spells as long as possible.
Berserker-run, in which one berserker needs to get as far as possible with only using spells.
The last challenge is boulder, in which a large, Indiana Jones-inspired rolling stone rolls through the level and you need to kill all the Vikings and jump over your own Aztec units.
Skirmish, with 3 difficulties and different options
Multiplayer with 9 maps and all kinds of different settings
25 achievements

At the time of this interview, there have been 3 races announced for the game-- the Aztecs, Vikings, and a third mysterious race. Can you tell us a little about them and what makes them different from each other?

The Vikings are these brutal, strong fighters, and they really love their barbecues. The main guy in the story is Red Beard, and he is after Black Beard because he trashed his barbecue party, the bastard! The Aztecs are these evil vegetarians. They grow huge vegetables for their vegetable growing contests. Recently, Fullthrotl, one of the Aztec leaders, managed to grow a huge, mind-controlling pepper which the Vikings want to make it into barbecue sauce.

Every unit and spell is different in the game. The Vikings have slower and stronger units, while the Aztecs have fast units and rely heavily on magic and poison to kill their enemies.

How did you decide on the 3 races you have? Were there any others that you considered but left out of the game?

These were the coolest factions we could think of. We threw out some other factions, mostly because the three that we have now are so different from each other, and the units and spells could be as unique as possible. These factions will definitely see a return in a possible sequel, and maybe we'll give the Space Marines a second chance. :P (Ed.: the space marines were an April Fools joke from Ronimo)

Is this going to be the beginning of a franchise? Can we look forward to some downloadable content (DLC) for other races or modes?

We don't have any DLC on the menu yet. But we have a long list of features, units, spells and other cool stuff to make a sequel; it all depends on the success of this first game.

How has the experience been developing for the WiiWare platform?

WiiWare is really fun to develop for. It's easy and relatively cheap. It is nice that small developers get a chance to show the world some new and exciting games.

We're really looking forward to this game. When can we expect to see the game available for purchase and what kind of price are you looking at?

The game will be out in a few weeks and the price is around 1000 points.


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Addendum: Additional information was made available after our interview with Fabian-- the third race has been announced, and an excerpt from the developer's blog provides the details.

At long last the veil of our secrecy is lifted! Emerging as the third contender for world domination is the CHINESE EMPIRE! Ruled by their child emperor, the Chinese care little for Viking barbecue feasts, or Aztec Vegetable growing contests. The Child Emperor tasks his subjects with gathering the the most exquisite toys from the corners of the world. Of course this will lead the Chinese empire onto a collision course with the other two factions. The Child emperor's army consists of disciplined warriors, ranging from martial arts specialists and spiritual zen-masters to firework-strapped rocketeers, and will prove to be evenly matched to the brutish Vikings and insidious Aztecs!


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We sincerely thank Fabian for taking the time to answer our interview questions and can't wait to get our hands on the title.