News and Wielders

Greetings Wielders!

What a time to be a gamer!

Today, a bunch of very, very cool games are being released. There are remakes, brand new anticipated titles, and DLCs for some massive games. And among all of them, we're launching our own little frog survivor spin-off. But more on that later, because I owe you an update!

Last week I briefly mentioned some of the things we've been working on with Songs of Conquest, but I thought I'd go into a little more detail this time. To be clear, this won't be a post revealing a new roadmap. We have plenty of things to do regardless, and plenty to talk about.

Our main focus right now, apart from the Wielders release, is optimization, bug fixes, and Android.

A lot of that work, if not most of it, has already been done as part of our Apple update, thanks to some rather heavy lifting from the team and our testers. But optimization has a tendency to leave its marks. Bugs you thought were gone forever suddenly reappear, new glitches show up, and all sorts of strange things start happening that need to be taken care of.

Somethings.. off So why are we breaking things that worked just fine a couple of months ago?

Well, the thing is that different machines have different needs, and we're putting quite a bit of work into making sure Songs runs as smoothly as possible on the consoles and mobile devices that need that extra attention.

Taking back ownership of Songs of Conquest Mobile was always going to be a massive undertaking, and we're more than a little proud of how well things have been going. A lot of that work was done by Niklas, our own coding ninja, who took the summer to work on laying down a very strong foundation.

One of the biggest issues with the mobile versions was stability, so that was naturally one of the first things we tackled. And looking at the version we're testing right now compared to what we started with, the difference is massive.

The nice thing about this kind of work is that everyone benefits in the end. These improvements are being made to the game itself, and since the mobile and console versions are based on the PC build, quite a few of the fixes and optimizations will make their way to all platforms.

And if you're curious about what we've been doing, or just want to help us find those last stubborn bugs, I can only recommend trying Songs of Conquest on our Public Test Realm. That's where we put the changes first, so we can make sure everything works as intended before bringing them to the regular version.

Next week, we'll be back to working on getting the DLCs onto Switch, continuing our Android testing, and all the other things that need doing. But right now, there's something else keeping us rather busy.

Wielders of the Essence is finally here!

Our little spin-off has grown quite a bit since we first started working on it, and today you can finally play the finished game!

It's a fast-paced survivor set in the world of Songs of Conquest, where you play as a Rana Wielder fighting your way through hordes of enemies. You'll die quite a lot, but by building up a settlement deep in the marsh, you'll gradually unlock more of the tools you need to survive.

You'll wield powerful spells, recruit loyal followers to fight alongside you, and eventually become quite the little frog powerhouse. At least until you run into something bigger and nastier than yourself.

And if you're a veteran Songs of Conquest player, you'll recognize quite a few familiar faces. There are units and Wielders from Songs making an appearance, along with plenty of new things that we hope you'll enjoy. Actually, we're pretty confident that you will!

Quite a few of our playtesters have been Songs players, some of whom have been supporting us since the early days. And having you help us make this little spin-off into what it is today has meant a great deal to us.

So, if you're curious about what happens when we take the world of Songs of Conquest and turn it into something a little more chaotic, why not give Wielders of the Essence a try?

Take your place in the marsh, defeat the enemies of Rana, and wield the Essence!

Or, as Rasc would say, the Marsh Provides.

/Anders and the rest of Lavapotion