- by Pol
The music part will be created by:
Paul Anthony Romero
Chris Velasco (Dark Messiah music)
&
Heroes Orchestra
And to this special event, here is Heroes Orchestra Christmas Concerto (with OE members at stage.. )
- by MadMax
It seems that Santa dug extra deep in his sack of gifts this year, as we have another copy of Songs of Conquest's Vanir DLC to gift our dear community! Since the first two got rewarded so fast, we'd thought we'd invite you to a little challenge this time!
To enter, give us a Songs of Conquest-related christmas rhyme in the comments or in the #contest channel over at Discord!
What is a christmas rhyme you may ask? Well, in Sweden, we have this tradition to write kind of funny and kind of bad rhymes that hint at what the present could be. An example (generated by AI of course) for a gift containing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 as an example could be:
"The clock strikes late, the fire burn,
But you’ll stay up for just one more turn.
With armies to build and foes to face,
This gift will take you to a magical place!"
or
"Time may pass as swift as flight,
When "just one turn" becomes all night.
Within this gift such joys await,
Your bedtime soon will run quite late!"
We look forward to hearing your rhymes!
- by MadMax
Recently, I had the privilege of exploring Lavapotion's latest addition to the acclaimed Songs of Conquest game: The Vanir DLC. As a fellow Swede, I may be biased, but the Vanir faction resonates deeply with me, and I absolutely love it. We get a perfect mix of Viking and Scandinavian folklore, along with a new snowy biome known as the Bleak East.
The DLC gives us five new Conquest maps and two challenge maps. It also brings with it nine new wielders with a mix of old and new special abilities. The new faction includes eight new troops, many of which undergo dramatic mechanical and playstyle changes as they’re upgraded. We also get a brand new town and exclusive artifact sets which introduce creative tactics for the new Vanir faction as well as those already in the game.
The Vanir lineup features lots of interesting characters with some very neat designs. The Berserkir and Skinshifter (4th column) make me feel like I am controlling axe-wielding maniacs; I'm glad they're on my side in battle.
The Crone/Nornor (7th column) may not look like much, but you'd better beware when you see them transform into a flock of ravens. They will turn up right next to you and inflict some wicked damage before retreating, leaving you with many fewer units than you had just moments before.
The Lykt (far left, top row) may at first seem like a small and insignificant unit, but its ability "Dance of the Vanir" will provide both ranged and melee units with a +5 offensive boost. Now, of course, that doesn't sound like much when a unit like the Chieftain (far right, top row) will grant your units +20 of the same statistics on top of inspiring friendly units within 1 tile, the Lykt are larger in number and cheaper to recruit.
However, my absolute favorite is the Troll/Grym (meaning 'Cruel' in Swedish). Not only do they look intimidating and mythical, when they pick up and toss a large rock (giving me some Heroes of Might and Magic 3 cyclops vibes) you just know right there and then that these are a great asset to your army. 
For us Swedish folks, just taking a look at the Wielders' names will produce a smile and a chuckle of pride. Wielders are just as varied as the creature lineup, featuring characters like 'Girighet' (Swedish for greed), who grants a +10% gold bonus after battles, the fierce-looking Bjorn Oakbreaker (+1 Chaos Essence) and Haemnd (hämnd is Swedish for vengeance), a classic witch-looking type complete with a black cat which is granted +40% spell damage power. Another notable Wielder is the charming, sad-looking troll named "Sorg" (Swedish for grief), which has his own Challenge Map, delving into a tale of when Sorg is captured by Baryan slavers. Oh and yes, by the way, that is a fish he holds in his hand (I first noticed this after I got a Steam Achievement named "So long and thank you for the fish", which I assume we all know the origin of).
During the still quite limited time I've had with the game, I decided to start a map called Go East, which pits players against four adversaries. I promised myself not to stay up late, but encountering one of the four enemies just as I was about to end my session (a promise I'd been making for over two hours at this point) made me say "just one more turn". Just like when firing up Songs of Conquest for the first time, it has me hooked. Not a lot of games have that effect on me anymore, but the ability to just fire up the game with minimal effort and preparations, knowing that I will probably get stomped by the formidable and quite intelligent AI (at least I tell myself it's very intelligent) but that I will learn some new tricks for each gaming session is what many modern games lack.
Overall, I'd say that this is a great DLC for anyone who has fallen in love with the original game, or someone looking for an entry point into this absolute beauty and enjoys Scandinavian influences not related to a certain furniture company. LavaPotion delivers a victory with this DLC which I hope didn't cost them what my victory pictured above did. The team behind Songs of Conquest has done a great job of creating a unique gaming experience that strikes a perfect balance of casual gameplay, storytelling and immersive combat that will scratch that turn-based strategy itch.
The developers over at LavaPotion kindly provided us with 2 copies of the DLC to be used on Steam, so tell us why you want to play it in a comment or over at our Discord server at #campfire-chitchat and if you're quick enough, we will share one of those copies with you!
Note please, that the comment from new members on the site requires approval and might be slightly delayed.
Read more about the Vanir DLC on Steam
| Comments (1) |
- by Pol
It has started and if you can't tame your curiousity, for Olden Era tidbits info, there's surprise for you. Each day a bit!
And a bit.
And a bit more! 
As dark clouds have recently gathered over the continent, the young medusa Ylwari is sent on a delegation to meet with the representatives of all the major forces present on Jadame. With Winter Equinox approaching, the Triumvirate of Alvar hopes to ease up the rising tensions between the Fey, the Holy and the Darkened. It is up to their envoy to broker an agreement that'll leave all parties content.
Winter Equinox approaches and with it a mystery that needs solving before it arrives. As you step into the strange fog, you wonder: What could that mystery be? Let's find out together within the next 22 days!
Join Ylwari on her trip to Ravenshore in
--Etharil & Helga
"Follow, watch, track, wishlist!*"
*Most importantly if you are from Hungary, Czech or Slovakia, to put some incentive for translantion into your language.
- by Pol
The wait is over — Song of Conquest has officially landed on consoles! You can now dive into the world of Aerbor on both PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. Whether you’re team PlayStation or Xbox, we’ve put our heart into the experience, no matter your console of choice.
The development has been a journey years in the making, and we’re very proud to share it with you at last! If you enjoy multiplayer you’ll be happy to know that the console versions are fully cross-play compatible! So regardless if you are playing on a console, PC, or Mac, you can face off in glorious turn-based battles.
Look at their smiles and natural poses. Playing SoC on consoles will do that for you as well!
For us, as a small indie team, there’s something special about seeing Song of Conquest coming alive on living room TV screens. It’s the same pixelated tactics game we all know, but it feels like its own thing on console. Plus, playing on consoles is perfect for Hot-seat mode. Just pass the controller to your friend for that classic, shared gaming experience. We highly recommend it for family game nights. Remember: your kids are never too young to get defeated by your aggressive frog army.
As a side note: Winter is still coming. So don’t forget to wishlist Vanir!
We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: we couldn’t have reached this milestone without all of our players! Having a dedicated audience has helped us convince our amazing publisher that it was worth the cost and effort to expand the game to consoles. Thanks for sticking with us this far. Next year will see more exciting releases and news to share.
So, grab your controllers, rally your armies, and let the conquest begin!
/Everyone here at Lavapotion
Original Announcement: Steam
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- by Pol
Aeolwyn's Legacy may be canceled, but the story is still alive!
If you hadn't heard the news, we had to cancel our swan song game, Aeolwyn's Legacy. It was due to a number of different reasons, but the main two were that the game ended up being too big for the little team, and that Tim, the lead designer and project manager decided that there were too many other things in the world that he wanted to do, so decided to retire from active game development.
All is not lost though! Tim has big plans to turn the story from Aeolwyn's Legacy into a series of novels.
The first series tells the story of young Aeolwyn and his rise to power. It will be available on Amazon eventually, but for now, you can read it in progress on Royal Road. Check it out!
- by Pol & MadMax
There's no word but you are invited to see Necropolis town and its Heroes and some of the units. In Halloween short faction revelation.
Old Heroes are gone, we don't have Nagash, Vidomina or Galthran though, you can spot some similarities 
And you certainly can have a thousand of questions. Which I can't answer but you can ask them in "question" thread, over Unfrozen Discord.
Please forgive lower image quality, these are simple cutouts from the video, so you can see them better.
From the left to the right:
- Milossa The Golden
- Funerella
- Marl
- Lord Rufus
- Onkos
- Kel'Ghul
- Bulwark
- Laura
If you would like to see Heroes Bio please scroll in the Forum's Thread. Some were announced, most of them weren't.
Please, add the Olden Era to you wishlist. This comes handy to display the interest, watch the game news and also to support your localization. Hungary needs to amass a lots of support, hurry on!
Gallery:
Hit "Read On" to see more pictures. :) Discuss in the Forums.
- by Pol
Two days ago, Internet Archive has been hacked again. Wayback Machine, Archive-It & blog.archive.org has been already resumed.
See the Internet Archive page, for the current status.
If you used the service in the past or you are using any connected services by IA, they might not work until fixed. (For example downloading free demo of Heroes II for fheroes2 is affected. But browsing old celestialheavens site works.)
According this, much longer explanation article, it's the second hack in this month and hacker compromised also their support ticket system. That's just awful!
Yep, current days on the internet, can be tough.
- by MadMax
What a weekend it has been for Heroes of Might and Magic fans. First, I'd like to congratulate Pumba for being crowned the champion of H3GG's tournament. Even though I do not speak Polish myself, I did spend some considerable time watching matches this weekend. 
However, the tournament also provided fans of Heroes of Might and Magic
with some really exciting news. Unfrozen gave us more information about Olden Era. Unfortunately, not knowing anything about the Polish language, I couldn't really gather much from the interview that was held in connection to Olden Era's video showcase. I did pick up words like "insectoids", "necromancers" etc. Maybe some of our Polish readers could help us out here?
I did manage to find an upload of the video shown here, what do you guys think of it?
The Day of Reckoning team (which I am a part of, just as a disclaimer) unveiled a brand new teaser showing updated graphics, and 3 new towns, Forge, Palace and Grotto. What's especially interesting is that Paul Anthony Romero has composed music for the Forge town, part of it which is being shown in the video now available on YouTube(here). Paul Romero composed the track for the Forge town all the way back in 2019, meaning that the team has been holding it a secret for 5 years.
VCMI also held a presentation showcasing some interesting updates. For those that love to analyze and dive deep into the outcomes of a game, they will display statistics after a game, giving insights on efficiency and more. They also showed off some new features coming in VCMI 1.6 such as a new optional feature that will be their implementation of spell research.
We also saw updates from the Horn of the Abyss Crew, which showed off some stunning graphics in a cutscene named "All In", which is from the HotA crew's upcoming campaign.
All in all (no pun intended), it's been a great weekend for anyone interested in Heroes of Might and Magic. It's a shame that so much of the tournament was delivered in Polish, but please do let me know in case I missed some important news!
What do you think was the most exciting news from this weekend?
As well, you can write your comments and thoughts over our forums, here.
- by Pol
Broken Alliance, which is a small pixel-like game project, is going to EA. In cozy pixelated world you wander and fight, with proud warrious and loudly are being told the story of the world.
You are welcomed to plunge into the adventure, albeit small, demo is available at a Steam page or from the Placeholder Gameworks Discord and you can comment or propose your perceptions. Actually your are encouraged to do it.
EA Planned Release Date: 24 Oct, 2024
And if you like, don't forget to wishlist. ;)
Why Early Access?
“Our project started from humble beginnings, trying to make a smaller scale adventure strategy game, but as time went by, our ideas also grew. We fleshed out the universe of Broken Alliance, and as time passed, it was clear that we want to create something more unique than just a "clone" of existing games. Thus, also our ambitions grew. That's why we decided to open up our game to Early Access, to also have the chance to let you, the players, have a direct influence on what the final shape of Broken Alliance will become. And finally, one very specific reason why we decided for Early Access: we simply need more time to finish the dialogues and voice over to realize our full vision for the game.”
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“We currently plan to have the game in Early Access for at least 6 months, and if it turns out we need more time, we will adjust. Most of the content has already been created for the game, but we want to spend time polishing what is already there and add in the rest of the content to meet our standards to offer you the best experience we can upon full release.”
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
“In Early Access, we plan to provide you with incremental content, first starting out with the Prologue and most of the first Act of the game, initially featuring only the Anchorage faction. The other 3 factions (Phobos, Paradise, and Forge) are planned to be added later.The Early Access version will start with a part of Act I of the game accessible, and we plan to have 3 Acts in total for the full release. The idea is to have a distinct, different experience when playing each of the four planned factions.
The initial Early Access release will not have full character progression or Champion upgrades, and also access to some buildings, abilities, skills, items, and spells will be limited, as we want to add those later with our planned updates.
We plan to reveal most of the content to you during the Early Access period. We plan to have monthly updates, but the exact schedule may change based on our pace of development and the feedback we get.”
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“Currently, the Early Access version will feature the Prologue, and then the Anchorage faction with character customization, town building, partial Champion storylines and upgrades, partial character progression, and voice over for most of Act I of the game. You will be able to explore a bit less than half of the entire world map. Act I is about half of the entire game experience, and you will be able to experience most of it in the initial Early Access release.”Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“Yes. We plan to launch the Early Access version with a price around ~20% less than the full version. No further price changes are currently planned. This to say thank you to all you early adopters of Broken Alliance, helping us achieve the full potential of the game.”
How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
“We plan to open up feedback channels on both our Steam Community page and our Discord servers to gather feedback, and plan to implement easy access to those areas into the game itself, so if you want to give us feedback, you start the process in-game. Mostly, we plan to ask you about quality of life features, the game balance, and progression mechanics, but we are happy to hear feedback about any aspect of the game! ^_^”Placeholder Gameworks is a small Estonia-based indie game company that makes serious games. We believe in video games as a great storytelling device and try to push our projects in directions that haven’t been fully explored by the industry. Our first bigger project, Death and Taxes, was released in February 2020.
And if you wanna see some drafts, you can here.
For me, demo is fun to play, nice background music, very nicely done dialogs and splendidly voiced. As of combat, there are hexes.
As well, you can write your comments and thoughts over our forums, here.
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