Simple game mechanics and a brilliant sense of humor are the driving forces behind Swords and Soldiers, an upcoming side-scrolling, real-time strategy game for WiiWare.
You'll be forgiven if you haven't heard of developer Ronimo Games, but you may have played its work: The group of students from Utrecht University in the Netherlands created de Blob, an Independent Games Festival finalist that eventually became a full-blown Wii game from THQ.
Swords and Soldiers pits three ancient civilizations against one another in an implausible series of historically inaccurate campaigns, challenging players to juggle light resource management and timing in what is shaping up to be a fun strategy experience.
Swords and Soldiers follows your typical real-time strategy rules. Each race has four combat units, and a resource gatherer who will mine the gold you need to buy troops. Your soldiers will march towards the enemy on their own, so the bulk of the strategic planning is pretty much centered around launching the right units at the right time.
Consider the Viking Frost Hammer. This wee warrior is armed with a massive mallet, and his slow, thunderous blow will cause nearby enemies to flinch. Stunned enemies will make the perfect targets for swarms of Axe Throwers, who work better in packs, at a distance.
While the Vikings rely on brute force, the Aztecs require a bit of ingenuity. Their primary unit is the Jaguar Warrior, who lacks armor, but is capable of leaping towards enemies. His attacks are perfect for closing the distance between vulnerable ranged attackers, slaying them for the Aztec Necromancer who raises corpses to create skeleton warriors. Undead soldiers are invulnerable, but will crumble to dust after a short while.
You'll also be able to fortify predetermined spots on the map. A tower icon will indicate a suitable location. For the Vikings, this means a fort for Axe Throwers to lob their munitions in relative safety. The Aztecs, on the other hand, get a tower that shoots laser beams from its eyes – a defensive tactic I'm almost positive I read about in freshman World History.
Spells play an important role in combat, especially since you can't control your units directly. Players have a mana pool that regenerates over time, and spells are directed on to the battlefield by pointing at a target with the Wiimote.
The Viking's Rage spell will send a single unit charging across the screen in a crazed frenzy, sweeping up any comrades they encounter into a psychotic cloud of destruction. Once their fervor has run dry, the Viking Heal spell will call down heavenly light from Valhalla to get your troops back into shape.
On the Aztec side of things, a well timed Poison Bomb will cripple groups of enemies and sap their health – perfect for countering swarms of ranged invaders. If those Viking thugs survive, you can always Sacrifice your own units to gain a bit more mana, and try again, or use the Mind Control spell to sow a bit of confusion into the battle.
There's a third race, but I'm not allowed to talk about them yet. Rest assured, their units are as varied and amusing as the rest.
There are 10 missions for each race in the single player campaign, and challenge modes that distort elements of the single player game.
The Viking's Berserker challenge, for example, will give you a single Viking warrior and an arsenal of random spells across all three races, with the goal being to see how long you can survive.
For a more casual affair, the Boulder challenge converts a powerful Aztec spell into a mini-game: a giant boulder careens across a map, and you have to hit the A button to have it hop over friendly Aztecs, while crushing as many Vikings as you can.
The real fun comes in the skirmish mode, which you can play against the AI, or split-screen with a friend. There's no online multi-player, unfortunately – the game's developers are a very small group, and I was told that the number of additional hoops required to get Nintendo-certified multi-player into the game would be a monumental task for the one (1) programmer on Ronimo's team.
Ronimo says the game will be inexpensive, for a WiiWare title. Here's to that. Nintendo has not yet set a release date for Swords and Soldiers.
Images courtesy Ronimo
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