Stunning Art Nouveau Strategy Game 'Songs of Silence' is getting a Kickstarter

Up-and-coming indie darling Songs of Silence caught my attention a while back. Partly through its gorgeous art direction, and partly through its ambitious mix of genres. It takes 4X strategy as a foundation, adds in some deckbuilding, role-playing, and autobattling, and then layers a story-driven focus on top of it. 

You’re taking a lot of genres infamous for being slow, methodical, and number-driven. Crunchy is the term I like to use. When you add them all together you should get something obtuse and complex. A Frankenstein’s monster of stats and mechanics. But that’s not the case here.

It’s a satisfying experience, with a surprisingly high level of polish. Even in the beta branch, the care and attention to detail was top-notch. The art is striking and unique. The game world is colorful and abstract. The campaign is voice-acted, and the game is driven by a powerful soundtrack by Hitoshi Sakimoto - a name that should be familiar to Final Fantasy and JRPG fans. 

So it looks, sounds, and feels great. It draws you in and offers you systems little by little. You’ll level up characters, develop cities, and put enemy nations to the sword. Here and there, you’ll grab cards to use in battle, set army formations, and watch as they auto-resolve combat on their own accord. You’re using mechanics taken from half a dozen genres, but they all click together. It’s fluid. 

The developers Chimera Entertainment have done a good job of leveraging this complexity whilst still keeping it approachable. Each system is stripped back and spread out. You might be a deckbuilding prodigy, but you can’t win a game on your card picks alone. Your thousand hours in Civilization will only get you so far here. It places importance on several smaller factors - and the interaction they have together. 

I don’t see this as being the next big autobattler, or the future of turn-based strategy or anything like that. Because, fundamentally, there will be other games that hone in on one specific feature and flesh it out more. No, the appeal here is broader. Each of the various mechanics gives a new way in and forms a reference point - and from there Songs of Silence takes its own path. You’ll get familiarity quickly, whilst being served a story and world drenched in character and conflict.

It’s a game I will be keeping a close eye on, and one that I think will strike a chord with all sorts of players. If you’re interested in seeing it for yourself, their Steam page here has a demo containing the first chapter of the campaign.

And if you like what you see there, watch for their upcoming Kickstarter campaign here. 

TLDR? We got you. Check out our Songs of Silence video preview here.