A new free update is available for The Dwarves that offer three new game modes and some fixes.

The Dwarves - Free & challenging update adds three new game modes

Vienna/Austria, Bremen/Germany - March 13, 2017 - The Dwarves has received a major update, adding a complete new gameplay experience. With 'Challenges', players are given access to three different game modes. First is Horde Mode where the heroes fight against a vast enemy army that grows in numbers and difficulty from wave to wave. Time Challenge demands players to kill all opponents as fast as possible, whilst in Chase, the goal is to capture a running Orc with his rucksack, while hacking and slashing through his comrades. 

These new modes can be played directly from the main menu. To add a competitive edge, players will earn points and can unlock all of the game's 15 heroes to use them in these modes, with a high score leaderboard showing the results of each attempt.

The patch is now live on PC, Mac, Linux, PlayStation 4^TM and Xbox One as a free download.

See full patch notes below:

Patch notes:
- New game modes: 3 different Challenges on 6 maps
- 3 new achievements for the new challenges
- New campaign difficulty mode: Very Easy
- Engine update: performance upgrade in many scenes 
- Divided display language and subtitle option
- Turkish language added (Subtitles / OnScreen-Text) 
- Optimized camera collision

Windows/Mac/Linux only:
- Additional graphics settings
- Free Key Bindings

More info to be found on the Kickstarter page.

A new patch for The Dwarves has been released yesterday, with the following patch notes:

The Dwarves - Patch for PC and Consoles Online

Vienna/Austria, Bremen/Germany - January 12, 2017 - Continuing in 2017, KING Art will not cease to work on The Dwarves. As we already announced in December with the release of the patch for Xbox One, The Dwarves has now received a performance patch on all platforms. Apart from performance improvements, it has also fixed one or two bugs. Exact patch notes below:

PS4

• Decreased loading times between different scenes (the game loads most scenes at least twice as fast)
• Decreased restart times in battles (65-75% faster restart times)
• Improved performance through better audio playback handling
• Removed framerate stutters due to audio processing in combat
• Fixed an error in battle of Mifurdania
• Fixed an error in the Golem battle
• Fixed "Greater Healing Potion"
• Improved performance in Toboribor
• Improved moving on the worldmap
• Fixed an error in portrait icons

Xbox One

• Decreased loading times between different scenes (the game loads most scenes at least twice as fast)
• Decreased restart times in battles (65-75% faster restart times)
• Fixed an error in battle of Mifurdania
• Fixed an error in the Golem battle
• Fixed "Greater Healing Potion"

PC

• Removed framerate stutters due to audio processing in combat
• Decreased loading times between different scenes
• Decreased restart times in battles
• Fixed an error in battle of Mifurdania
• Fixed an error in the Golem battle
• Fixed "Greater Healing Potion"
• Fixed an error in portrait icons

After today's patch, the next thing KING Art will work on is content for The Dwarves. The patch is expected to release in March 2017 on all platforms and, among other things, offers the so-called "Challenge Mode", a new game mode, which confronts players with various challenges on different maps, i.e. standing against new enemies as long as possible, or defeating a specific amount of enemies as fast as possible etc. Stay tuned!

Sser of the Codex has reviewed the Dwarves:

RPG Codex Review: The Dwarves

For being cornerstones of the fantasy genre, it is a bit surprising how little ‘play’ Dwarves see in gaming. They’re virtually never main characters and they seem to share the same personality across many mediums: “Oh ho ho, don’t look down at me, I’m an alcoholic blue collar worker from fantasy Alaska, all Elves are East Coast sissies and magic is for Mary Sues.”

World of Warcraft’s demographics show that dwarves are one of the least popular races despite being a mainstay. It’s strange because, in a way, Dwarves are essentially the Navy SEALs of the fantasy genre. They’re always outnumbered and fighting against the odds. One dwarf is worth the lives of a hundred enemies. Well, good news disgusting dwarf-lovers, you now have two Dwarf-games to try out: We are the Dwarves, a quasi-Commandos game based on three dwarves who utilize stealth and surprise to defeat their enemies, and The Dwarves…

[...]

The scope of The Dwarves clearly stretched far beyond what it could accomplish. Things like provisions, decisions, the map in general, ‘friends’ meters, and so on and so forth, all hint at a bigger and more interesting game than what it actually had to show. There's definitely good fun found in some of its battles, it's just not worth a big entry price to come and see. The main consistency of The Dwarves is the compelling nature of its story. I’m a cynic when it comes to the fantasy genre, but the game does tell an interesting story and I definitely had a few “whoa!” moments. There is also a grimdarkness to it that should appeal to to the modern fantasy consumer. Where Tolkien-esque battles of fantasy old feel about as violent as a carwash, The Dwarves makes full and oft-realistic use of its harsh setting. A shame the The Dwarves did not get the budget of a Lord of the Rings.

Big-time fans of the novels will probably buy it anyway, but I would only recommend this game at discounted price for a weekend romp through an RPG-lite visual novel with a solid story. I very much hope that the game does well and that we may see the devs someday catch up with its lofty aspirations.

GamePressure reviews The Dwarves and finds it lacking.

Dwarven Age: Origins?

Where's the connection with the first Dragon Age? First, the outline of the whole story. If it weren't for the fact that the books were written a few years before the release of DA:O, I might've been suspicious when reading the story of a young dwarven blacksmith, on whom, by a whim of fate, falls the task of uniting his kinsmen, as well as humans and elves, to fight the great evil, represented here by a sorcerer leading an army of orcs, undead, and dark elves (known as the elfr). This, of course, is a plot premise known in the fantasy genre for centuries, but it's also a very popular theme which happens to marry heroic pathos, a dose of dark brutality, and a tint of crude humor, all in all reminiscent of the work by BioWare.

The second thing that brings to mind Dragon Age: Origins, are the mechanics. The Dwarves i salso a tactical RPG in which we lead a team of four adventurers into battle. The key to success lies in planning our actions on active pause and employing the special abilities of our heroes. This is where the similarities end, though, because in the work from King Art Games, beside fighting, we spend a lot of time on traversing the world gamebook-style.

The tactical RPG The Dwarves has been released today:

loading...

The Dwarves is a fantasy role-playing game with a strong story and tactically challenging real-time battles. 15 playable heroes, each with individual skills, are to be deployed cleverly. Take on superior numbers of orcs, ogres, älfs, bögnilim, zombies, dark mages and many more foes, to give them the low-down.

Based on the bestselling novel “The Dwarves” by Markus Heitz you’ll experience a fascinating tale revolving around the coolest fantasy race ever: The Dwarves!

• Tactical real-time battles: You’re fighting hundreds of foes with just a handfull of heroes. You can pause anytime to tactically plan the next smart move.
• Crowd combat: All creatures on the battlefield are rendered with physical complexity – that’s why the battles feel especially dynamic and “real”, and enabling a lot of tactical finesse.
• Captivating story: Join the dwarf Tungdil on his adventurous journey across Girdlegard.
• Explore the world: Uncover secrets, learn more about the game world and its inhabitants, and solve optional puzzles.
• Delve into the world map: Girdlegard ranges from snow-covered summits to shimmering deserts. You can move freely on the world map, meet numerous characters, and experience adventures. But beware: A lot of your actions on the world map have far-reaching consequences!

Dwarves! Finally the coolest fantasy people are in the spotlight. The NPC days of the bearded axe-wielders are over – the age of the dwarves has come!

The Dwarves has been reviewed by Cosmic Engine.

loading...

Cosmic reviews The Dwarves a new fantasy RPG developed by King Art Games and published by THQ Nordic. Enjoy The Dwarves review? Subscribe and enter the giveaway below! This game was provided free for the purpose of critique.
Giveaway ► https://gleam.io/LKE1C/win-the-dwarve...
On Steam ► http://store.steampowered.com/app/403...
--- Follow and Support Cosmic Engine ---
Twitter ► http://twitter.com/Cosmicengine99
Facebook ► http://tinyurl.com/q5vpc63
Patreon ► http://www.patreon.com/cosmicengine
Twitch ► http://www.twitch.tv/cosmicengine

@Gamebanshee they have the latest hero video from The Dwarves known as Narmora.

The latest Meet the Dwarves video from KING Art Games introduces Narmora the Assassin, an elf who can leap around the battlefield and backstab enemies, sometimes even chaining kills with her Shadow Death skill. Take a look at the video presentation below:

loading...

Wccftech has interviewed King Art Games about The Dwarves - the RPG will be released on December 1:

Action RPG The Dwarves To Last 15 Hours, Sequels Depend on This One’s Success

loading...

Last year we interviewed KING Art Games right in the middle of their Kickstarter campaign for The Dwarves, an action RPG based on the first novel of the best-selling series created by Markus Heitz.

The game is heavily story based, as you would expect. Its gameplay has a tactical flair in that you can pause combat at any time to plan your next move, which should come in handy given the chaotic battles we’ve already seen in the trailers. Gamers will be able to choose between a roster of fifteen playable heroes, each one coming with an individual set of skills.

The Dwarves is now set to be launched on December 1st for PC (Windows, Mac, SteamOS/Linux), PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We reached out to KING Art Games in order to find out more information on the game’s development and features ahead of the upcoming launch.

[...]

If the game succeeds, are you planning to create a sequel based on the second novel by Markus Heitz? If so, would that be funded via Kickstarter again or not?

Of course, we would love to do a “The Dwarves 2” as well. The following books really push the story forward to new and interesting conflicts and we would love to build upon the Dwarves 1 formula. But it all depends on the success of the upcoming Release of “The Dwarves” on December 1st.

How long will it take to complete The Dwarves on average, according to your estimate?

Around 15 hours on medium difficulty on the first playthrough. But we got many optional quests and there are different ways to get to the end. It really depends on how you play it.

[...]

Thanks Stefano!

@Gamebanshee This video introduces Boindil as part of a hero spotlight series in the lead up to the games release.

KING Art Games' forthcoming RPG The Dwarves will feature a total of fifteen different playable characters, and through the availability of a new "hero spotlight" video series, the team is giving us a chance to get to know some of them. In this entry, we're introduced to the "killing machine" named Boindil Twoblade:

loading...

The Dwarves has been updated to Beta 2 according to the latest kickstarter update.

What's in the Beta?

Compared to Beta 1 there are...

Up to 5 new battles with new enemy types
Up to 6 new playable heroes, including the new companion written by Markus Heitz
Tungdil's journey between the kingdoms of the Secondlings and the Firstlings

We also fixed a ton of bugs, added new features and worked on the performance. We're looking forward to your feedback!

I checked out King Art's The Dwarves at Gamescom, a game with a focus on story and combat.

You play as Tungdil, the main character in the game. He is a dwarf who was raised by a human mage and does not know much about being a dwarf. He is also a rather weak fighter at the start. In the game you will encounter other dwarves and learn what it is like to be a dwarf and get thrown in enough combat to improve on your combat skills. You're a fast learner, which means that by the end of the game you could become the strongest fighter of all. This all begins when Tungdil meets the twins Boindil and Boendal, who will be your first party members and who will lead you to meet other dwarves in the world.

You move from one point on the map to the other, explore different locations, learn more about the background story, and do quests you get from talking to NPCs. When you gain experience from these quests, all of your potential party members will gain experience as well. This is in contrast to gaining experience from combat, as in that case those not in your party will only gain half the amount of XP compared to those who are in your party when the fight took place. By granting experience in one way or the other, also to those you didn't select to be in your party, the developers wanted to ensure that characters will not become completely useless when you have not played them for some time.

In a Kickstarter update for The Dwarves a bunch off pledge rewards are shown and a release date of December 1st is mentioned.

Our plan was to release the game end of September. And the game is ready to go. So the release date will be… December 1st.

Wait, what?!

Yes. It sounds weird, but we hope that ultimately you will support this decision. There are three reasons why we think this is the best date for the game.

• When you want to release a game on consoles, it first has to be inspected by Sony or Microsoft. Since there are many games in the so-called "submission" at the moment, we didn’t get a date as early as we wanted. This pushes back the earliest possible release date to October. But October and November are the busiest months in gaming. Most of the big sites, YouTubers and bloggers won’t have time to play and review anything else than the big AAA games. We want "The Dwarves" to be as successful as possible; hopefully successful enough to enable us to start working on "The Dwarves 2". For that we need attention and media coverage. And we won’t get that in-between all the big releases. It’s un-dwarfish but we’re basically chickening out and waiting until the big wave is gone.
• We do a lot of testing at the moment and we’re still finding some bugs and ways to enhance the balancing a little. It’s mostly small things, so we could release the game and then make a launch patch. But if we put more work into the launch version, we might not need a launch patch.
• Releasing the game December 1st gives us the opportunity to send out the physical rewards in advance, so for once you’ll actually get your physical Kickstarter rewards at the same time everybody gets the digital version of the game.

Therefore we think December 1st is the best date for “The Dwarves” and their future. Hopefully you guys agree.

To reduce the waiting time we’re going to release an updated beta version (featuring new characters, enemies, quests and battles) next week. This beta will be available for Mac & Linux as well.

The article finishes with some fresh screenshots.

The Dwarves was playable at Gamescom and Wccftech have posted their impressions. They expect the title to release next month as The Dwarves is already in certification with Sony and Microsoft.

Unlike The Witcher series by CD Projekt Red, which is an unofficial sequel to the books written by Andrzej Sapkwoski, The Dwarves will be following the first book's story quite closely, with players following the orphan dwarf Tungdill Goldhand as he meets other dwarves and other races' representatives and gets involved in a lot of fights, plots to overthrow kings and much more. That is not to say that those who have read the book will be getting no new story content, as King ART created several side quests which branch out from the book's story.

During the development of The Dwarves, there were a few goals that the team wanted to achieve. The first was to recreate The Dwarves' world as faithfully as possible. While some locations have been created as closely as possible to the book's description, for others, the team created maps from information taken from the book, filling gaps where needed. By doing things this way, book readers will be able to explore a world that feels both new and familiar at the same time.

Trying to recreate the book's world and atmosphere led the team to implement a variety of other features, with some of them strongly defining the game. The first one is the amount of playable characters available in the game, with most central book characters being playable. As characters in The Dwarves are from different races, ranging from dwarves to humans to everything in-between, they will come with different abilities that will force players to rethink their combat approach every time their party members change. With another interesting twist, NPCs will actually react different depending on the active party members, so players will have to be mindful about who to bring in specific locations if they want their lives to be easier. Or harder, if they like a good challenge even outside combat.

A new gameplay trailer for The Dwarves was just launched for the launch of the beta today. Also note that the new launch window is now set to Fall 2016.

Beta is Now Live
Later today, the Beta starts for everyone who supported The Dwarves on its successful Kickstarter campaign last year (slacker backers can still get it from our store: http://tinyurl.com/TheDwarvesStore). KING Art Games has already received great feedback from the alpha, which has helped to massively improve The Dwarves even further. For example, the idea for an optional pause-function during the real-time combat came from the players. By widening the player base significantly through the Beta, KING Art Games is looking forward to receiving even more feedback, criticism and ideas from The Dwarves community.

Fall Release Window 
The final release of The Dwarves will shift slightly from Summer to Fall 2016. Reason number one is to be able to implement all community feedback, whilst reason number two is so that there is a simultaneous release on PC and consoles, digitally and in traditional retail worldwide. 

Development on The Dwarves is mostly complete: all characters are ready, the story is done, the voice-acting is finished, the orchestra and the chorus have performed their art and Girdlegard, the game's world, shines in all its splendor. If you are eagerly awaiting The Dwarves' release, you can already add it to your Steam wishlist: http://store.steampowered.com/app/403970 

Sir Brennus led us to this beta gameplay video for The Dwarves at Gamestar. The video is in German and runs at 16 minutes long.

The German developer studio King Art Games tinkered for a year at a tactics RPG for the novel game The dwarves. Creative Director Jan Theysen now shows us first beta gameplay.

In the latest kickstarter update for The Dwarves they announce that the Beta will release next Thursday/Friday and provide some details on the content to expect. Expect another update on how to get the Beta and a trailer next week.

The beta will feature approximately the first 40% of the game. Compared to the last Alpha you'll experience four more battles, two new playable characters and a story-loaded visit at Ogre's Death, the fortress of the Secondlings!

[...]

Launch Window

We still don't have a final launch date for the game. The date depends on the Beta feedback and other factors.

We might have the opportunity to release the game worldwide on PS4 and Xbox One on physical disc. That's huge for us, because more places to buy the game means more games sold, which raises the chance to make "The Dwarves 2". But a physical console distribution also means a couple of extra weeks for producing and shipping the discs.

There's too much going on at the moment to give you guys a final date. Our plan up to this point was to release the game in August, but at the moment we think early September is more likely. In both cases we'll keep improving the game for as long as possible.

So we hope you agree that launching a couple of weeks later isn't a bad thing if it helps the game. We'll keep you updated and let you know as soon as we have a date.

In a short development update for The Dwarves we are informed of the savegame fix in the Alpha 2 update, which is available now and all the other things they have been busy with in April.

We had a very busy month!

• We were on two cool gaming conventions: The Rezzed in London and the PAX East in Boston.
• We did the German voice recordings in Berlin.
• We’re doing the English voice recordings in London RIGHT NOW.
• We worked a lot on new combat encounters, new playable characters and cutscenes.
• We finished the location design and the character design. Woop-woop!
• We started to work on the gamepad controls.
• A couple of players tested the game in our office and gave us feedback (three times in the last month!)
• We talked to manufacturers about things like the Tungdil figurine, the hardcover special edition of the book, the box and many other rewards. We’ll post an update about that stuff later. It’s going to be great!
• We added more blood & gore (and other effects) to the game; but that’s still work-in-progress.
• We fixed a ton of bugs and made an update for the Alpha 2.

The second alpha for The Dwarves is now available for those who pledged for it.

Alpha 2 online for Alpha backers

We have improved a lot since the first Alpha and are looking forward to your feedback. Here are some of the improvements:

• We have revised the combat system and added a "pause function"
• We have revised the ingame user interface; it should now be significantly more clearer
• You can now create savegames and we implemented auto saves.
• We rudimentarily integrated all UI screens (the designs aren’t final yet, but they work)
• There now is loot, XP, skills and all the other good stuff :-)
• You can fight a good half dozen of battles in about 6-8 hours of play time.
• Linux & Mac support (BUT: We only had little time to test these versions. There might be bigger problems.)
  Edit: The Linux & Mac versions are still uploading (20+ GB).

Your feedback on the Alpha 1 was very valuable to us and we think that you’ll discover a lot of your input in the Alpha 2!

And there is this about the beta:

Apart from the stuff you can see in the Alpha 2 we’ve worked on many other things.

• All characters are modeled
• All arenas are designed (many still have to be lighted though)
• Nearly all ingame animations are laid out
• All text has been written and is currently being translated (and the voices will be recorded soon)

We also took care of the Kickstarter rewards in the last months. For example, here’s the prototype of the axe Keenfire as a LARP weapon:

Other things on our plate for the next weeks and months are primarily:

• Improvements based on the Alpha 2 feedback
• "Assembling" and "staging" of all elements
• Cutscenes
• Testing
• Polishing, Polishing, Polishing

Our plan is publishing the first Beta in 5-6 weeks. It will presumably contain the complete first of three chapters that we’ve internally divided the game into. By that time chapter 2 will undergo internal testing and we’ll be in the process of finishing chapter 3.

The alpha 2 version for The Dwarves will become available in the week of the 14th or 21st of March.

We want to take another two weeks to make the game "Alpha-2-ready". Among other things we still have to integrate the promised Mac & Linux support. If we have enough time, we will also make a first round of performance optimization, so that the system requirements of the Alpha 2 will not be higher than those of the Alpha 1, despite new graphic features.

They also list the things that they have been working on, combining it with several screenshots.

Improvements based on your feedback: Two of the main points of critique in Alpha 1 were the combat controls and UI. We have worked hard to improve both of those. Additionally there is now a "Pause & Play" option and first tests are very promising. We can't wait for your feedback on Alpha 2!

Most of the important features are now in the game: In the Alpha 1 many important things like level-ups/skills, the inventory, merchants and loot didn’t exist yet. All of that is now part of the game and is currently being tested by us.

All characters and many levels are finished: With Queen Xamtys and the secret Kickstarter character that Markus Heitz developed for us, the two last characters have been brought into the game. We’ve also built many new battle arenas.

We have worked on lighting and effects. The mood of a game depends heavily on the lighting, graphic effects (incl. Weather) and so-called “post effects” (e.g. automatic adjustments of color and contrast S). Here are a few examples for that.

And there is a new video.

The first alpha version of The Dwarves is available to all backers who donated at least $45 to the development of the game. This is what is currently in that alpha version:

The Alpha 1 contains the first two hours of the game. It starts with the tutorial, offers a story/exploration segment, some adventures on the world map and finally the first "real battle".

A lot of things in the game are not final or at least not polished yet. It is an early development version, and you shouldn't expect this to be a "marketing beta test" of a final game just for promotion purposes. Currently nothing is set in stone and we're trying out stuff.

If you want to have a smooth, finished game experience, the Alpha 1 isn't what you're looking for. But if you don't mind teething troubles and want to give us feedback, then be our guest!

Here is a development update for The Dwarves by means of a video.

The votes for the stretch goal from the The Dwarves kickstarter are in and the result is that the stretch goal for a new character and quests are selected.

he survey about which Stretch Goal we should realize is over and we have a clear winner!

• 49,7% - "New Character & Quest"
• 23,9% - "Coop Pack"
• 16,9% - "Music"
• 9,4% - "Game Modes"

In the vote for the additional language Spanish (12,9%) was a tight winner over French (12,6%), followed by Russian (6,9%).

We’re attempting to find partners in as many territories as possible, so that we can possibly offer additional language versions. Maybe we’ll also offer a localization kit for fans, so that they can create additional language versions. We’ll see in the next months.

During the coming weeks we’ll consult with Markus about how to approach the new quest and the new character, and then get to work!

In an update for the Dwarves, we learn that those who pledged can now register to enter their information and the poll for the stretch goal that will be implemented is still running. One of the possible stretch goals is co-op mode. Some thoughts about this option are written down and it might not hat easy to implement.

Since the Co-op Stretch Goal seems to be popular with many of you, we have already thought about it a bit and asked ourselves, how we would implement a co-op mode. From the technical side a local co-op mode in battles would be possible. But we are seeing a problem outside of the battles.

In the game you travel a lot on a world map and in “adventure segments“ you can explore levels, make conversation, etc. For these game segments there just isn’t a simple way to offer a cool game experience to more than one player. For that to work the game would have to be aimed at co-op from the outset, like e.g. Divinity: Original Sin.

Co-op gameplay would also clash with the single player gameplay to some extent. Maybe we want to have a level in the game where you have to split up your group. A few heroes are maybe defending a gate, while others look for a way out. In single player mode the camera would always jump to where the player is at. In co-op one would need to try keeping all characters in view – which doesn’t always work – or one would have to work with split-screen, which would use up a lot of development time. To dispense with such a level in single player, just because it causes problems in co-op, is something we want even less.

We therefore think it’s a better solution to offer only special co-op battles outside of the main game / the story. We are imagining a kind of “arena mode”, with different rules and optimized for co-op. There the heroes can for example recover action points much quicker, so that you don’t have to wait too long to trigger a special ability again (in the game you mostly have 4 heroes, resulting in ¼ of the waiting time, compared to playing just one hero in a 4 player co-op match).

We don’t know if the co-op mode will win the voting and nothing is decided yet. We just wanted to inform you about it in advance, since this info might influence your voting behavior.

The Kickstarter campaign for The Dwarves is over and all funds combined the stretch goal has been reached.

Our Kickstarter for "The Dwarves" is over and 6.374 backers pledged a total of $310.091 on Kickstarter and …wait for it… $24.963,42 on Paypal (!!!).

In total we have raised $335.054,42 and that means, we have VERY EASILY reached the first Stretch Goal, with a surplus of $54. :-D

What’s next?

• In the next weeks Kickstarter will send us your names and info whether the transaction of the money was successful.
• Shortly after that (maybe four weeks from now) we will contact you all via email* and send you the link to a page where you can check your pledge (both Kickstarter and Paypal) and give us your address, if you pledged for a physical version.
• On this website there will also be a poll among you backers, on which Stretch Goal we should implement.
• Later you can also choose what kind of key you want to receive there (Steam, GoG, or the like). This page is the central contact point for everything regarding your pledge.

*As an email adress we will use the adress that is connected to your Kickstarter account. Maybe you could check if that one is still correct?

We’ll notify you via an update on Kickstarter, Facebook, and our website as soon as we’ve sent out the emails. If you then don’t receive an email within 24 hours, our support will help you. But, like we said: we’ll make lots of noise when the emails are sent out in early November, so you won’t miss it.

For mid-December we are planning the first "backer alpha". That is an early version of the game where you can try out the first few hours of the game and get an overall impression of it.

Participation in the alpha is of course optional to "alpha backers". But the more feedback we get, the better it is for the game. Well explain in December what the procedure of the alpha and feedback is going to be.

Thanks Eye.

We entered the final day of the The Dwarves Kickstarter campaign and combined with their Paypal funds, they only need another $12K to reach the stretch goal.

Hi everyone. We're in the final hours of our campaign! Today at 23:59 CET our campaign will be finished.

We only need about another $12k to reach the first Stretch Goal! If we reach about $315k here on Kickstarter we'll have it in the bag (since we made about $21k on PayPal, which we count as well).

The most recent Kickstarter update for The Dwarves explains more about the stretch goals, of which they hope to reach at least one, which one is up to you.

Usually there is a set order in which Stretch Goals are unlocked. But what if you are only interested in the third Goal down the line? That's why we adopted a different approach:

For every $75.000 we make on top of our funding goal, all of our backers will be able to vote for which Stretch Goal we will implement next. That way the most wanted Stretch Goal of the Community will be implemented first.

The money we collect via PayPal, currently ~ $17k, counts towards the Stretch Goals as well. That's why, since we reached the funding goal, we're almost half-way to the first Stretch Goal.

Some people have asked why the Stretch Goals seem more expensive (in relation to the initial funding goal). The reason for that is that the Stretch Goals will be financed exclusively from Kickstarter funds, while the main game is only partially financed through Kickstarter.

The four stretch goals to choose from are:

Stretch Goal "Music"

• The entire soundtrack of the game will be recorded with a real orchestra
• We will integrate music that changes dynamically based on what happens in the game
• We will put an additional tabletop figurine (Boïndil) into the “Kickstarter”-Edition and all backers of digital editions will receive the data of both figurines for 3D printers
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal "New Character & Quests"

• Markus Heitz will write a completely new companion for Tungdil, with a unique back story and quests
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal “Coop Pack”

• We will add a “Local Coop” option to the game, that can be played with up to four players
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal "Game Modes"

• The game will be enhanced with a “New Game Plus” mode (meaning that the second playthrough of the game is different than the first)
• The game will be enhanced with a “Horde Mode”, where you have to withstand approaching orcs on different maps for as long as possible;
• The results will be saved in Highscore lists
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Before the Kickstarter for The Dwarves ends in two days, we bring you the second part of our two part interview Gorath had with KING Ars' creative director Jan Theysen, with more information on the combat system and character development.

RPGWatch: I take it combat is one of the key selling points for The Dwarves. What's so special about it?

Jan Theysen: Our basic idea for combat is that we wanted to have this feeling that there is a small group of heroes – in our case 4 – fighting against dozens or maybe 100s of enemies. It's like Lord of the Rings. You're at Helm's Deep and you have to fight the orc army with just a few hero characters. We thought “This might be fun, this might be cool. How can we achieve it?”
Obviously, when you think about it, some problems have to be solved. You can't really do a TB game because you don't want to wait until a hundred orcs or so are finished with their move. Doing an action-RPG would be technically possible, but we wanted to have more tactics in  combat.
So we thought about how we could do combat with a tactical element that is fun and dynamic. Our lead programmer Thomas came up with the idea to give all enemies a flocking behavior and make them physics driven. If you, let's say, push an orc, the orc might push another orc behind him, who pushes a third orc behind them who falls down a cliff because of that. So we have this physics system which works really great with big groups of enemies, and we can use it to make the combat fun and dynamic. We think it's pretty unique because you can use physics and the environment to your advantage and there haven't been many games like that.

With The Dwarves funded King Art have released an update on kickstarter and a gameplay video.

Wo-hooo!

For the last few hundred dollars the suspense was almost too much, but thanks to your help we have reached the Funding Goal! :-D

Thank you so much!

We've got about 8 days left to reach at least one of our Stretch Goals. That should be manageable, don't you think?! From now on the PayPal money counts. It's about $14.500, so it's only $60k to the first stretch goal!

We will have another update Saturday (?) where we will explain the four Stretch Goals in more detail. Basically, it works like this: For every $75k pledged on top of our funding goal, you - the Backers - will be able to choose one of the four possible Stretch Goals which we will then incorporate into the game!
Huge, new in-game video!

In the last 3 weeks we worked hard on making a playable game out of all the separate pieces we had. You can see the result of our efforts in our new Gameplay-Video that shows the first 10 minutes from the start of the game.

Of course, all of this is still "Work-In-Progress". But we integrated hundreds (!) of small things into the game to slowly make "The Dwarves" into a real game ;)

Enjoy the video and please share it!

They are also promoting a Thunderclap so get involved if you want to lend support.

We started a Thunderclap-campaign to hopefully gain more attention for the game and more easily reach our next Stretch Goal. If you sign up for it you give Thunderclap permission to send the displayed message through your Facebook- or Twitter-Account. Because the message will be sent by all participants at the same time, it will have a much greater effect.

We would really appreciate your support!

In the Kickstarter update for The Dwarves, we can see that they are only $17K away from their Kickstarter goal, so that should not be impossible to achieve in the next 10 days.

There are again some new rewards:

• $165 – Superfan Pack with additional digital PS4 or Xbox One version 
• $265 – Collector’s Edition with additional digital PS4 or Xbox One version
• $1250 – You in the game + Keenfire: You receive everything from the "You in the game" Edition PLUS the Keenfire as a life-sized LARP weapon

Information on the coverage they received:

We always complain about the low amount of coverage for "The Dwarves". But we shouldn’t forget to mention that there are some great articles too.

• A multi-part interview on RPGWatch
• The first part of a multi-part behind-the-scenes documentation by Writing Bull (German)
• A vlog about Stevinho’s visit at KING Art Games (German)

And news that there will be a gamelay video at the end of the week.

In an update for The Dwarves last week Friday we are informed of some additional rewards that are available on Kickstarter and Paypal, such as exclusive Kickstarter editions for PS4 and Xbox One and these two:

Your voice in the game

You receive the "COLLECTOR'S EDITION" of the game and get the opportunity to immortalize your voice in the game. You can either visit our office with the other backers (including a tour) and make the recording here, or you send us your recording. You’ll appear in the credits of the game as an "Ogre" who marches against the dwarves.

Keenfire Collector’s Edition

You receive the "COLLECTOR‘S EDITION" of the game, as well as a lifesize, very limited, high-quality LARP version of our legendary axe Keenfire. You will be the biggest character in the credits: A "Golem".

In addition they have uploaded some animated GIFs to imgur.

Earlier this week we paid a visit to KING Art Games' office in Bremen (Germany) to talk about their innovative story-driven fantasy RPG The Dwarves. We came back with an extensive interview packed full of new infos.

Here's a short excerpt:

RPGWatch: I take it the story is very important for your game?

Jan Theysen: Yes. It's based on the novel by Markus Heitz. I read the book, I don't know, 7 years ago. When I read it I had this thought “oh, that would be a nice story for a game”, but I really didn't think about that WE could make this game.
Years later we came into contact with Markus because one of our game designers designed the Dwarves board game. You know, it's a story made for an RPG, you might say. There are very strong characters, and the story is fast-paced. There are many battles but also exploration and strong story moments in between. We liked that a lot. We said, now this is the basis for the game, this is our main quest. On the other hand we didn't want to simply retell the story, but rather wanted to expand it. So there are optional quests and of course some adjustments because we had to change some things which work in a book, but not necessarily in a game. All the big beats in the novel are in the game. All the characters are in the game, all the big battles, but there's a lot of additional stuff going on.

You can read the interview here.

The Kickstarter campaign for The Dwarves is currently at 213k$ of 260k$, with 13 days to go. So things are looking good for the main target.

Link to article

The metal rock band Blind Guardian will be providing some of the music for The Dwarves and will also have a role in it according to the latest Kickstarter update.

Dwarves are tough – made from stone by their god Vraccas, they are rough warriors and skilled craftsmen. The love for all kinds of metal is in their blood and there is only one kind of music to complement the thunder of their sledgehammers and the clash of their battleaxes: METAL!

We are therefore happy to announce that "Blind Guardian" are going to become part of the game. Not only will a part of the original The Dwarves soundtrack by composer Benny Oschmann be reinterpreted by musicians of Blind Guardian, but there will also be a special quest involving Blind Guardian in the game. The band and Markus Heitz are cooperating with KING Art on ideas how to best blend this quest with the story and game world.

Julian and Marco jumped into a car in a cloak-and-dagger operation and payed Blind Guardian a visit:

The update also contains information on the development status and that they have been given several interviews (og which one wa to RPGWatch).

After reaching 75% of their funding goal KING Art Games has some new plans:

Current status

Yesterday we reached two milestones in one day: We passed the 75% mark and the half-time of our Kickstarter!

On our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/dwarvesgame we’re currently collecting your feedback on possible additional rewards. Please participate if you have any ideas!

The next weeks

We’ve got a lot planned for the next weeks.

This week:

• On Wednesday we will release a new video that we hadn’t planned on. We were able to get in contact with a fantastic band that would like to do something for The Dwarves. We won’t tell you who they are yet, but let’s say it like this: It’s as good as it gets. We are hoping for a reasonable PR effect, and maybe even the big international gaming websites will get cracking.
• On Friday we’re going to release a video that aims more at other developers and technophiliac backers than at normal gamers. We’re showing our workflow and our technology and try to raise attention in the developer community with it.

Next week:

• Early next week we will send a gameplay demo to Youtubers and websites. They can play roughly the first 20 minutes of the game and make videos of it. On Wednesday or Thursday (?) these videos may be published. They will provide an in-depth look at the gameplay and hopefully reach significantly more people than we usually do.
• If it goes well, we will also reach our Funding Goal sometime next week. We’ve heard that some gaming websites only cover Kickstarter projects after they are successful. We won’t discuss whether this makes sense now… but some good things might happen there too.

The week after next:

• Should we reach the Funding Goal next week, we’ve got about 5 days left for Stretch Goals. At least one of them should be possible within 5 days. Depends mostly on whether the band announcement, the gameplay demo, or the “Funding Goal reached” message can finally get the international sites aboard or not. If you are an active user of one of those websites, you could inquire nicely why “The Dwarves” isn’t covered. ;-)

On our own behalf: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Our Kickstarter game from last year, the point-and-click adventure “The Book of Unwritten Tales 2”, is now also available for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

We’re very proud of it and 96% positive reviews on Steam tell us, that we really must have done something right. :-)

Here you can learn where to buy it: http://ow.ly/SkxOP

Please share!

Thanks Eye!

In the Kickstarter update for The Dwarves a new video is presented providing a peek at the design of The Dwarves.

We’re currently designing the last of about 50 characters, respectively character classes/races, from the game. About 2/3 of them are already available as 3D models and many of those are ready for animation.

We expect to be able to finish the character creation within this year.

Of the battle arenas and locations in the game only a handful are ready for the limelight. That’s mainly because we’re working on many levels simultaneously and nearly all of them are still missing some objects or textures. But we’re progressing nicely and the levels that are more or less completed look really sweet (at least in our opinion). :)

The Kickstarter campaign for The Dwarves is still 90K shy of reaching its goal of $260K, so it could use some more money being thrown at them. In the meantime the latest update gives some insight on the music and voices of the dwarves in the game.

For years our trusted supplier of music has been Benny Oschmann. From bombastic themes up to small tunes, he can write anything that we need for The Dwarves.

He’s got the exceptional ability to come up with very catchy melodies that won’t get out of your head. Even today, years after the release of “The Raven” and “The Book of Unwritten Tales”, you can still hear KING Art employees hum tunes from these games in the hallways.

And on voices:

We’ve already recorded part of the voices for "The Dwarves" (for the Gamescom and the Kickstarter). Only a fraction of the text has been recorded, but it’s enough to give you a first impression.

More information on the game concept and the gameplay using the world map, locations and battles is provided in this update of the The Dwarves Kickstarter.

Prior to each battle you choose up to four heroes that will fight in the battle. Each hero has individual strengths and weaknesses, and a certain combat style. Some heroes might be able to deal lots of damage to many lightly armored enemies, while others can take a lot of damage or are experts on ranged combat.

Each character also has skills that can be learned or improved during “Level-Ups”. They can be obvious skills, like an especially powerful attack or a new spell for the team’s mage. Some are unusual talents though. Rodario for example, a highly gifted actor, can camouflage himself and walk through enemy lines undetected. Later in the game he can even disguise as enemy units and cause lots of confusion.

In battle you can switch between the different heroes anytime and give them orders. You can for instance improve their position on the battlefield, let them use an item or tell them to use a special move.

The latter uses up action points, which the different characters can replenish in different ways. Some receive action points for each enemy they kill, while others might receive points for each blow that hits them. Our goal is to have 15 unique playable characters and make sure that each of them plays differently....

About halfway through their goal of $260K, today's update for The Dwarves, brings us information about the stretch goals, Mac and Linux versions and a PayPal option for donating.

As a premiere we DON‘T have a specific order for Stretch Goals! Instead each goal costs the same (75.000) and you can choose which goal we should implement for you, as soon as we are $75.000 above the Funding Goal (then at $150.000 above, and so on).

You can choose between the following goals:

Stretch Goal “Music Pack”

• The whole soundtrack of the game will be recorded with a real orchestra
• We will integrate music that changes dynamically based on what happens in the game
• We will put an additional tabletop figurine (Boïndil) into the “Kickstarter”-Edition and all backers of digital editions will receive the data of both figurines for 3D printers
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal “New Character & Quests Pack”

• Markus Heitz will write a completely new companion for Tungdil, with a unique back story and quests
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal “Coop Pack”

• We will add a “Local Coop” option to the game, that can be played with up to four players
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

Stretch Goal “Game Modes Pack”

• The game will be enhanced with a “New Game Plus” mode (meaning that the second playthrough of the game is different than the first)
• The game will be enhanced with a “Horde Mode”, where you have to withstand approaching orcs on different maps for as long as possible; The results will be saved in Highscore lists
• The game will be translated to one additional language (subtitles); The language is chosen by you

The Kickstarter campaign for The Dwarves comes with its first update, mentioning that withing 48 hours the $100K milestone was reached. In addition they also explain in what way you can pay on Kickstarter without using a credit card in the German speaking market, while they will announce their PayPal page at a later stage (probably when they reached their goal).

And there is this bit about not doing Mac and Linux versions of the game:

For our previous games we have always made Mac and Linux versions and we’ve received several questions why we’re not (yet) doing it this time.

There are two main reasons:

• We have to use our resources cleverly. If we can “only” develop, test and release three versions of the game at the same time, then it has to be on the three largest platforms. In this case they are Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
• Technologically “The Dwarves” is much more sophisticated than Battle Worlds: Kronos or The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. We just can’t be sure if we can manage to make a really good Mac and Linux version of it. We would need to spend a lot of time for tests, which leads us straight back to reason 1.

BUT: Both of that doesn’t mean that Mac and Linux versions are out of the question. In principle we want to continue covering as many platforms as possible, and would love to release The Dwarves on Mac and Linux.

We’re currently discussing internally, if and how we could do that. Maybe we could offer a stretch goal that will bring us enough budget (and therefore time) for the ports.

The Kickstarter campaign for the fantasy RPG The Dwarves has launched:

Trailer:

King Art's The Dwarves will go to Kickstarter on September 1.

Our new game is… not The Book of Unwritten Tales 3. BOOOOH! ;-) Not yet. Instead we are – finally – working on our first role-playing game.

On September 1st we’ll launch a Kickstarter for it and would be very happy if you could support us once again!

The Dwarves is a fantasy RPG based on the best-seller of the same name. Our main character Tungdil explores a huge fantasy world with an ever-growing group of companions.

Thanks Christoph

The Dwarves was one of those games I checked out at Gamesom that actually weren't in development that long. This makes that much about the game is still undecided, which makes the validity of statements made in this article depend on how things will work out in the future.

King Art Games, the developers of games such as The Book of Unwritten Tales and Battle Worlds: Kronos, had information leaked a while ago about the development of their new game. A game of which the first line of code was written in March, this year. To make sure the expectations of the game would be in line with what the game would be, they decided to go public and announced The Dwarves.

The Dwarves is based on the first book, in the series of five Dwarves books, German author Markus Heitz has written. They try to follow the book as good as they can as there are quite a number of fans that are watching what they do to see if it matches the books and their vision of it. That is why extra attention is given to areas and characters from the books that are also used in the game.

Here is the Gamescom announcement for The Dwarves.

Ready your axes... The Dwarves are coming!
Intense tactical RPG for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will debut at Gamescom

Munich/Bremen, July 23, 2015/... The game for everyone who needs more beer, beards and battle in their lives. The Dwarves is a tactical RPG with an innovative combat system, based on the bestselling fantasy novel of the same name, and will receive its world debut at Gamescom next month.

The revolutionary Crowd-Combat System forms the core of The Dwarves, meaning that enemies exhibit a flocking behavior and are influenced by physics. If a dwarf lands a mighty blow with a heavy war hammer, the impacted orcs are thrown back, colliding with their allies and some of them might even be pushed into an abyss! It's only through tactical use of the environment and all of the heroes skills that players will be able to survive against the hordes outnumbering them by 100 to 1.

The Dwarves is developed by established German studio King Art Games, the creative force behind The Book of Unwritten Tales-Series, Battle Worlds: Kronos, The Raven and many more. 

Key features of The Dwarves:

• The main character in the game is the dwarf Tungdil, who grew up among humans. Over the course of the story he gathers a group of up to 12 companions around him; each of whom have a unique backstory and individual battle skills.
• Before each battle you assemble a group of up to four heroes, who then fight against hundreds of enemies simultaneously... Helm's Deep sends its regards!
• Innovative Crowd-Combat System: Enemies have a flocking behavior and react using realistic physics. Every action of the player has an impact on all enemies.
• You travel across Girdlegard on a world map that contains dozens of battlefields and places just waiting to be discovered.
• Bestselling author Markus Heitz is directly involved in the project as a consultant and will contribute some quests and brand new characters.
• The Dwarves is in development for PS4, Xbox One and PC; Release 2016.

Leaked infos published by the German website Hooked forced publisher EuroVideo's hand and caused a panic reaction. Hooked had found out King Art Games (The Book of Unwritten Tales series) is working on a strategy-RPG mix based upon the popular fantasy book series The Dwarves. EuroVideo first reacted with a content-ID strike on YouTube and threatened with legal action based on some artwork Hooked had used in their video, but later they reconsidered, announced The Dwarves and came to a reasonable agreement with the website.

I'll rip off Kordanor's forum post for the details and modify it slightly:

The German News-Page "Hooked" revealed a Leak that the German developer King Arts is working on a Tactics-RPG in the Universe of "Die Zwerge", which is originall a Book-Series written by Markus Heitz who also joins the production of the game as advisor.
Shorty after the leak, this was confirmed officially.

King Arts made themselves a name by doing the awesome "Book of Unwritten Tales" - Adventure Game and "Battle Worlds: Kronos, a very good spritiual successor of the Battle Isle Series. King Art will retain complete creative control over the project.

Die Zwerge (literally "The Dwarves") will be a game in a fantasy setting similar to The Banner Saga. The main character will be Tungdil, a dwarf who is grouping up with up to 12 companions, who will have individual skills and backstories. For each fight you can chose 4 of these to fight the battle.
In contrast to the Banner Saga though you can more freely travel on the world map and make own decisions on what to do next. Besides of the main story the game will also have side-quests.

The game will be co-financed via Kickstarter. The project will launch after the gamescom in early August.
It's also interesting  that they seem to acknowledge that outside of Germany nobody knows this series. Due to that they will focus on the popular stuff like the licence and the Author, while the English version will focus on the campaign and combat system.

The release is planned for March or April 2016.