The Dwarves Update #7, $205,147 and Counting

The big announcement contained in the seventh update for The Dwarves’ Kickstarter campaign is that German power metal band Blind Guardian will collaborate on the game’s soundtrack. Not only that, but there will even be a Blind Guardian cameo in one of the game’s quests:

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.

To celebrate the announcement, KING Art Games has released a video with vocalist Hansi Kürsch and guitarist Marcus Siepen on their YouTube channel. Interestingly, it sounds like it was the folks at Blind Guardian that got in touch with the developers first:

Blind Guardian isn’t new to this sort of thing. They have previously composed an original track for Sacred 2, a fantasy action-RPG from Ascaron Entertainment, and even appeared as characters in the game. The track was later included as the opener of their 9th studio album, “At the Edge of Time”. Additionally, the band is well-known for using fantasy novels as the basis for their lyrics and iconography, so it’s not really surprising to see them working on a collaboration of this type again.

The team also updated their backers on the current progress on the game:

• Orcs are now behaving more intelligent and don’t just run toward a dwarf to then form a (blob) around him. Instead they recognize if a path is blocked by an ally and look for other places where they can wreak havoc.
• We included the first status effects to the game, like “stunned” or “burning”.
• We can now give orders to orcs like: “guard this territory” or “march from here to there and attack anything that you encounter on your way”.
• We’ve improved and added elements of the user interface, e.g. the victory conditions of you and your enemies in a battle are displayed.
• Additionally we’ve modelled tons of useful items.