Songs of Conquest - Interview

For older gamers in the strategy genre, few games are as collectively revered as the Heroes of Might and Magic series.  The series was a mix of overworld strategy of resource collection and castle expansion, mixed with tense tactical battles of creatures and spells.  Cubed3 catches an interview with the team behind Songs of Conquest which looks to be an exciting game in the same genre. 
 

Interviewees: 
Carl Toftfelt - Lead Game Designer 
Niklas Borglund - Lead Programmer 
Magnus  Alm - CEO of Lavapotion 
Johannes  Aspeby - Lead Producer (Coffee Stain Publishing) 

 
Cubed3 Can you tell us what SoC is about and why it is unique? 
Carl Songs of Conquest is an  Adventure Strategy game where you control mighty Wielders to 
expand your kingdom and conquer your neighbours. It's inspired by the old adventure strategy games of the 90s and we've added our own take to it. 
 
You can play it in Skirmish mode to just slug it out with the  AI or other friends or you can play our campaign which tells the story of our fantastic world and the Wielders who walk it. As to why it is unique, I would say it's unique since we've added some exciting gameplay mechanics to a concept we thought needed it.  And our world, even though inspired by cultures and fiction, is our own and we're very excited to see how our future players will like it. We think it's very unique, at least.
 
Cubed3 What made you interested in making a game like this? 
Carl These kinds of games have always interested me, I played so much Homm and  Age of 
Wonders in the 90s and I've always liked the mix it brought to the table. To be able to work on a game in the same genre just sounded like the best thing ever! 
 
Cubed3 Talking more about SOC what are some things you would like to talk about or point 
out? 
Carl Well one of the things is the magic system I suppose. Our magic is based on something called The Essence. It's sort of like the soul of a being but also something that can be infused in objects. Wielders are your leaders and they can draw on the Essence around them to cast mighty spells. 
In a gameplay meaning this means that you will have to build your army in a certain way to unlock the spells you think will help you best. If you want to damage your foes you need to bring troops that have the Destruction essence and if you want to make your troops stronger the essence of Order is better suited. 
 
Cubed3 For all intents could people think of this as remake of HOMM2/3? 
Niklas Not really. HoMM 2 & 3 are huge inspirations for us when making this game and we will hopefully scratch that itch for those who want to play that type of game again, but we are doing our own thing with SoC.  At Lavapotion, we have a wide variety of players that bring so much creativity and their own references to the table which makes Songs of Conquest a fully unique experience. 
 
 

Cubed3  On your team many of your people mention HOMM2 as an inspiration, the similarities 
are definitely there, what was it about this game that stuck with you guys so much? 
Magnus For me it was the atmosphere, the great balance between strategy and roleplaying. Having both Heroes to level up as well as an army to command is a pretty unique thing and when 
you add spellcasting on top of that. It was just, something else, something I had never experienced before (as I never really played HOMM1). In the long term I think HOMM3 does stand out as the best game in the series, but for me personally HOMM2 was what started my love for the series.  
 
Cubed3  To continue off the earlier question, why were later games NOT that good, and what are you doing to avoid it? 
Magnus Short answer is that the newer games have tipped more towards gameplay and mechanics and forgetting about theme and atmosphere.   
 
Cubed3   Some others mentioned interest in the older Fallout series, do you feel like there is any overlap with SOC in terms of ideas or anything else? 
Carl  Not really , in the end. We've looked at a lot of both new and old games and I've always loved the old rpgs like fallout and Baldurs Gate and the sort of turn based action they provide. So when it comes to that we've looked at it for sure, but not in a larger sense than that. 
 
Cubed3  It seems like you have a decent presence already for just early alpha stages, what do you credit this too? 
 Johannes   I think it's mainly our fantastic members on Discord. Many devs are quite active there and I think we have a nice mutual relationship where both parts enjoy interacting with the other. The release trailer we showed back in 2019 got us a big exposure as well of course together with art posts that have been trickling out on the twitter-account. I also believe that we are filling a void with this game that many have yearned for.  
 
Cubed3  What do you feel like the market is for strategy games, as they have always been 
smaller compared to rpgs or shooters? 
Carl It's a way smaller market, but there are so few strategy games like the one we're making that 
we feel there's plenty of room for us to fill. 
 
Songs of Conquest is currently entering Alpha stage and is slated to be out sometime early next year.