We are the Ronimo Games team, creators of Swords and Soldiers and we just released a sequel on Steam and PS4- ask us anything!

I stopped playing Awesomenauts after the game became free to play. Was the move to freeplay successful for you guys?

It was. Sure, we didn't end up with millions of people playing, but it has done pretty well. Also, this was always what we thought would be 'the ultimate version' of Awesomenauts, and it does feel like that to me.

Now that SnS2 is released, will Awesomenauts see some more content soon? If so, what kind of content? I personally would like to see more ultimate skins, but I understand that those are a ton of effort. Will Awesomenauts ever see another Design-A-... contest?

Would love to do another Design-A-Thing contest. Those have always been a lot of fun! Nothing to announce for 'Nauts in terms of content though - we've basically been all-in on Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon over the last couple of months, so we didn't have much happening outside of that.

Awesomenauts is one of my favourite games ever and inspired me to learn to become a game designer! I just started in university learning computer science! My question is: what kind of schools did you go to?

That's awesome to hear! I always super proud to hear Awesomenauts inspired people in some way or changed their lives. Good luck on your studies!

I went to business school myself, studying International Business Administration at the RSM Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and then a masters in Human Resource Management there. I now work as a producer, managing a lot of the stuff that doesn't directly relate to the development tasks here at Ronimo.

Why no Xbox One version?

We're a pretty small studio and there's only so much we can do at once. We've had multiple projects in the works over the last couple of months, and doing an extra platform for Swords and Soldiers 2 would have meant our tech team wouldn't have been able to do any work on our other projects at all in the meantime. As an indie, we sometimes have to choose what to work on, and that often means we can't do all the platforms we'd like to.

HolyJoost here with 2 questions, 1: What was the hardest character feature for you to make in Awesomenauts? 2: Do any of you like toast

In addition to the 'Infinite Source of Bugs' that was Genji's Cocoon, Derpl's siege mode has also been a pretty complex system. There's a lot of systems at work in allowing Derpl to do what he does, and we've had plenty, PLENTY of cases where Siege Mode would break in an intended way because of a fix somewhere else.

Also no I don't do toast.

I used to love Awesomenauts back in the day, it is still one of my most played games in my steam library.

Are there any plans to try and bring some players back to it? Or a sequel?

Lots of ideas, but doing a sequel isn't really something that seems right. 'Nauts could continue to evolve in many ways as it is right now, without another title replacing it :)

Do you think a switch port for awesomenauts would be successful? F2P games seem to be doing really well on the switch.

I think it'd work really well, actually. It seems like a very natural fit to the platform, but as Joost said... it's not something we've got lined up.

Which Awesomenaut do you most want to be and why?

Deadlift for me. He actually seems like a really nice guy.

What are skills you think are absolutely mandatory for the C++/C# internship?

Is the idea of adding mods to brawls still being discussed?

How many cups of coffee Robin drinks per day?

-Aside from having general coding skills it's actually a huge bonus if you're excited about the sort of project that we're working on and have an affinity for the specific task that we've got lined up for that semester. In that sense, there's always a little bit of luck involved for every internship position that we have - you need to have the right profile and apply at the right time to match what we're doing!

- It keeps coming up regularly. It actually came up earlier this week in a conversation I had with Jasper ;)

- Too many. I've been trying to avoid it for the last couple of days though, as it's been hectic enough without caffeine! Today none so far... but I'll make some in a bit.

ever plan to add more factions to s&s2?

We have LOTS of ideas for expanding Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon, but adding a faction or even individual units is a quite a lot work. Very much as we did with Awesomenauts, we'll take things as they come!

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If you have cool ideas for what you'd like to see, I'd love to hear that though!

I love you guys! I was an early adopter of Awesomenauts (Xbox 360) and remember the publisher woes that went with the release of new content, then I purchased the game again on the PC later that year. I'm glad that you are still around making new stuff, unfortunately S&S wasn't my cup of tea. I still recommend it to people though.

Have you ever thought about making an action adventure style game akin to something like Guacamelee or Hollow Knight? I would love to see what you guys could come up with.

Also shoutouts to Joost's devblog which I love reading from time to time.

It's an idea we've played with before, but it's a little far removed from what we know. Personally, I think its something that's just best left to other studios who are more adept at this - we've just evolved in a different direction that makes us more suited to do multiplayer games, for example. It'd be awesome though, and I'd be really curious about what the Ronimo-twist to games like those would be!

I like Awesomenauts but haven't tried Swords and Soldiers 1 or 2, are there similarities or is it a completely different style of game?

It's a completely different game really. It's still side-scrolling, but it's a strategy game rather than a more direct action-platformer.

Edit: my comment got removed for not asking a question, so do you guys plan to develop any games for mobile platforms? (end edit)

I don't think I have any questions, but I wanted to thank you guys for making Awesomenauts.

I have 1607 hours in that game on Steam. I've probably bought around 20 copies of the game, to give away so I had people to play with I knew.

I had some injuries around the time 'Nauts first came out and since I couldn't get around easily, I ended up playing a lot of 'Nauts instead. I loved it. A lot of my friends did too.

When I would get home from work, tired and stressed out, 'Nauts helped me relax. When I went through a divorce, 'Nauts helped me stay sane and keep my mind occupied. When my mom got cancer, 'Nauts was there to help me take my mind off of stuff when I had free time. Before I married my (current) wife, 'Nauts was the first game we played together, and we still do play it sometimes, though she's super into Stardew Valley right now.

Honestly, your game has been with me through some pretty difficult shit, and if it wasn't for 'Nauts I probably would have just drank myself to death. I know you don't set out to make a video game thinking you'll make a positive difference in people's lives necessarily, but you did, for me. You got me through some dark places, and I have a lot of fond memories with friends playing your game.

So thanks, to all of you guys, your whole team. 'Nauts helped me in ways I probably never really thought a video game could.

Developing games for mobile platforms might be cool some day, if it aligns with the project we're working on... but our main focus is PC / console games really. There are lots of talented mobile devs out there, and we just kind of evolved in a different direction.

That said, the original S&S was ported to mobile by Two Tribes, and it did REALLY well there!

Regarding your other points, thanks for spreading so many copies of 'Nauts. As a small studio, I can say we really appreciate that! I mentioned before on this page that it's truly heartwarming to hear that a small game that we made has touched the lives of so many people in so many different ways, and that's the very best thing about Awesomenauts for me. It has brought a lot of people together, and many people have stories about themselves in which Awesomenauts has had a role. Thank you for sharing yours! I'm glad we've been able to help you with all that in some way.

Where did your name come from?

It stands for Robot Ninja Monkey. How about yours? You obviously have great taste.

Nice! Very creative.

I used to be an amature, pro wrestler, named James Ryder. My top rope finisher was called the Ryonimo drop... Like Geronimo! but with a twist.

Now it's my gamer tag/ Nick name among friends.

Damn, that's awesome!

Are you guys working on a new game/project?

Yes, we are working on something besides 'Nauts and Swords & Soldiers II. That's about all we're gonna say about it ;)

If you hadn't sold rights to de Blob and started up your current studio, would you have made any different design choices than what we ended up with?

That's hard to say, but there's a pretty good chance there wouldn't be Ronimo Games if that deal never happened

When I played a few years ago, I played the hell out of Skølldir. I always heard that the game was balanced around him, is there any truth to that?

Also, how do you pronounce Skølldir? Google would always something like Scall-der, but for a while I would say Skoal-deer.

I'd say Skull-deer? That's what the lyrics of his theme say anyway. He's a solid character but not necessarily the character we've always balanced around, but Jasper could probably answer that better than I could.

Any plans for a switch version of swords and soldiers 2? I loved the original on the Wii. :)

Yes, a Switch version is actually being worked on by our friends at Engine Software! I played it this week and it's awesome!

Hope to announce a release date for that pretty soon, but there's quite some work left to be done.

If you had to pick 3 nauts pros to save the world, who would it be and what characters would they use?

Niki, KngRichard, and Eddster probably. They're like my GTA V-trinity of likable characters.

What's with your interest in vikings? (I'm from Finland so I'm a huge fan too)

Vikings are pretty awesome, right? Awesome stories / gods and they actually ventured quite far in the world, leaving an impact basically everywhere.

When Yuri get banana new skin??

Oh god, yes. Ronma plz.

Will your bring it to Switch?

Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon is coming to Nintendo Switch in the near future! Our friends at Engine Software have been bringing it to that platform.

What was your favorite thing to either design, create or work on across all of your games? This goes out to everyone on the team.

For myself, it was probably the Starstorm Kickstarter. That did so much better than we anticipated and it brought in so many excited people! I spent most of my time during the campaign just talking to players, answering questions, and stuff like that. There was also a lot of general excitement at that time about that the fact that the vision we had laid out with the campaign was resonating with players, and that we were now in a position to make all of that happen. That high lasted for years, actually!

Whats your opinion on to trying and get Awesomenauts to be an esport? I currently work in esports and I always talk highly of Awesomenauts to my peers. I even got a few to try the game out and we all have fallen in love with it.

The game has a lot going for it, and there have been quite a few community-hosted tournaments in the past. We also worked with Alienware and GosuGamers to run two official tournaments, and those turned out REALLY great! It was hard to keep pushing that though, as we had so many things going on at the time.

can you guys bring back the clunk figurine? And make a few other naut figurines? Can we get a derpl announcer? Awesomenauts 2?

We only have a few Clunks left on our end, and doing another run doesn't really seem that feasible as it was already hard enough to get the first run done. For that same reason, it's not likely we'll do another character unless we find a partner willing to make that happen.

Derpl announcer is actually a cool idea that I don't think we've ever given a lot of thought. We _DO_ have the SUSI announcer though.

Awesomenauts 2... maybe some day. But right now expanding on 'Nauts as it is seems to make more sense than hitting the reset button on that. After nine years of 'Nauts, it's also exciting to work on something else ;)

Describe your perfect shawarma in 1 word?

Mine. It's all perfect as long as I get to eat it.

Why doesn't helgo scoop have the Swords and soldier theme as his theme?

Because he's Scoop, and deserves his own theme ;)

Hey all, Neko here!

As I understand it y'all at ronma are just finished up with SnS2 releases and are sitting back for a bit to see potential success for it while working on a third project; that being said, there's been a lot of talk in the community about the future of 'Nauts, which is understandable.

My question to you guys is: Do you have any specific plans in the future to sell off the 'Nauts IP similar to deBlob, or is it something that you'll continue to work on, albeit a little slower? I only ask because I can understand how complex it gets the more development teams are needed in a small studio, and with 3 games currently being worked on at once ('nauts, sns2, unmentioned one) it can be extremely challenging to juggle all of that. I doubt you'd want to give up such a passionate project as 'Nauts or let alone sell the rights to it, but much of the active community is becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of maintenance due to work on SnS2 occurring concurrently; some have even suggested turning 'Nauts over to the community, which while I disagree with is an idea in its own right.

Thanks in advance for the responses, love all that you guys do <3!

We're not planning to sell off the IP for Nauts, and now that our plate is cleared we can also give 'Nauts a little more love. We'll have to see what's coming though, so no promises on either front.

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Juggling three projects is hard though, like you said!

Can you add permanent leagues to console? New players get smashed because we don't have enough playets to reset leagues. They always play very experienced players. Looking at trophies most players don't level up very far. I can double check bit it was pretty low % of players getting to level 10 I think

That's a problem with having a smaller playerbase though. It might help some, but it also means a lot of people won't play against other people and against bots instead. That also doesn't really prepare them that well for eventually running into actual players. It's a bit of a Catch 22, unfortunately.

Not saying the experience might not be better if we did as you suggested, but it just still wouldn't be where we'd all want it to be!

All the love in the world to you guys for making 'Nauts! As for my question: How did the unfortunate passing of John Bain hit you guys? And what was it like to work with him, and Jesse Cox?

Working with folks like Jesse Cox, John Bain, Dodger, Myndflame, etc. has been awesome. These are people who started doing what they do because they like videogames, and often are talented entertainers. All of them were excited for Awesomenauts and getting them to provide a voice for something they are excited about just made the end-result that much better.

The passing of John Bain hit us pretty hard, and I mourned him as a great content-creator, as someone who had worked with us on Awesomenauts, and as a great voice in our industry. We all knew of his condition but didn't expect him to pass so soon. It didn't REALLY hit me until I went onto the Awesomenauts forums after hearing the news, and reading stories from our community about how they had found out about Awesomenauts because of him, how Vinnie was their favorite characters, and how John had touched their lives through Awesomenauts. I was at an airport when I read those stories, waiting at the gate, and cried.

John was very critical of his own performance on Vinnie & Spike, and usually went out of his way to say he did a 'horrible job' on it whenever it came up... but I know a lot of people, including myself, loved it. He was the first big content creator who did a video on the game (back at EGX 2011) and gave the game love numerous times over the years. The game really wouldn't have come this far without him.

Love you guys! Awesomenauts is literally one of my favorite games of all time. Me and the bros play it damn near daily. One of the few remaining mobas that I enjoy that are still up and running today.

Can ya boy get just ONE MORE Jimmy skin? He's my main and I would love some new skins for em.

That's awesome! Thank you all for playing <3

Would love to do another Jimmy skin, as I think it's one of the craziest characters we've got. No promises though!

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Who's the best nauts player in Ronimo?

Who's the best S&S player in Ronimo?

Jasper for 'Nauts probably, Olivier for Swords & Soldiers.

Hoe gaat het kipjes?

Tok?

Will we ever see Zork on PS4? Will ps4 ever go free to play?

We're not planning to make the game F2P on consoles because making this happen on Steam already took us a few years to prepare, and it'd be even more complex to pull off the same on consoles.

If you meant Snork Gunk, we currently don't have a new update planned for consoles.I don't want to say 'never', but you shouldn't get your hopes up about this.

Understood. Y'all left the game in a great place on ps4. Everything is in a nice balance.

Thanks, it's good to hear that! <3

That explains it! have you got any plans for cross platform play? Also, do you have any games coming out on Xbox? :)

We don't have plans for crossplay, though it would be awesome. Doing crossplay requires taking some things into account way at the start of the development process, and it's our own engine as well so we can't rely on other parties making this work for us.

Nothing lined up for X1 right now, but we did release Awesomenauts Assemble on the X1 in 2016!

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Ooh boi! I first came intro contact with you guy's games on a gamecon named FirstLook, and played a lot of awsomenauts after that because your energy and interest in your own game back at that convention inspired me. So thanks for making that game and being awsome! Anyway, is it difficult to design characters story wise for a game like awsomenauts? And how do you avoid clishes? I noticed that they all seem to fit nicely in the games eviroment and style, and the themesongs are fantastic too. Color pallets etc, that kinda jazz.

(sorry for the long post i wanted to be clear. Ok thx bye)

Thanks for the kind words <3 There's lots and lots of different ideas for the different characters, so I don't think we've ever had trouble coming up with something. They're all just a little crazy, and crazy comes easy enough to us ;)

Speaking of Shawarma, what's your favorite kebab shop in Utrecht?

We get Kapsalon at Ten Beste, near Neude. Don't know any proper Shoarma places though. Recommendations?

Ben inmiddels een paar jaar verhuisd, meeste 3 uur 's nachts kebab haalde ik bij polleke (dürüm döner met geitenkaas is de shit). Shoarma is een zeldzaamheid, kan me alleen herinneren dat tent die Harem heette op de Amsterdamsestraatweg (#106 oid) het had, maar dat was in 2005.

Goed alternatief mijns inziens is de pita gyros (met extra vlees) van El Greco op de ganzenmarkt, maar dat is dan weer niet halal mocht je dat belangrijk vinden.

Pita Gyros halen we onder de Dom altijd. 10/10!

i fucking love that you are answering questions readily and rapidly.

i remember watching launch videos for Awesomnauts and being put off by the rapidly jumping screen. i have never tried the game because of that. from a design perspective is there a reason that you made the trailer so jumpy? or is that how the game actually is? maybe i am not your target audience but i struggled following the trailer, however, S&S2S trailer is much more calm and focused on the game rather than jumpy and flash cut.

different producers for the video? drastically different game style and needed the varied trailer?

thanks!

No, it's the same people making trailers on our end, but we've also learned a lot over time. Awesomenauts is a pretty fast-paced game, so the trailers do reflect that. Swords and Soldiers is a little slower-paced, and a totally different genre.

I would love to purchase the game (S&S2) on GOG, Will you make my dream come true?

We don't have a DRM-free version of the game as the game requires Steam for multiplayer, so that's not in the cards just right now.

Hi! I'm a huge fan of Awesomenauts, and it's my favorite MOBA of all time. I heard you guys were involved in some WarioWare: DIY thing a while back. How did that go?

Thanks for being a fan! Must admit that I don't know anything about the WarioWare thing though! Do you have a link for that?

What's the team's favourite Dutch treats? My Dutch friend is sending me a pack of snacks soon and I'd like to try something new!

Favorite treats? Probably Bossche Bollen... but you can't mail those.

The swords and soldiers series has a lot to do with food in terms of plot and artwork. Almost every awesomenaut has references food or candy in their lore or item kit. Some nauts are entire backstories involve eating.

What I'm trying to say is do you guys pitch ideas right before lunch break? Are you not eating enough in the Netherlands? Why is food almost always something critical in the things that you make?

Food is pretty critical in everything we do, so why not? Food is nice. I like food.

To be perfectly honest, I don't really why food keeps coming back in our projects... but I guess it might just be an easy way to tell more about the characters we create :)

I'm a Swords & Soldiers fanatic who's put in over 800 hours over PSN and Steam, I'm quite excited to finally get going on S&S II. (I never had a wiiU... like most.) I guess if I had any question it would be what took so long to get to Steam?

Damn, that's impressive! Thanks for being a fan <3

The reason it took so long to bring it to Steam is because we've been working on Awesomenauts at the same time, and wanted to finish the work to make that F2P on Steam. That took much longer than expected, but we focused our efforts on that which basically didn't allow us to ALSO port it to Steam and PS4 at the same time.

Can I get a reviewer's copy?

Please reach out to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) for that.

How long does it take for a team such as yourselves to come up with new game ideas, and how many of those actually come to fruition? Just something that has always interested me. Thank you!

New ideas are probably 10 every five minutes if we really sit down to brainstorm! Coming up with an idea and really fleshing that out to a point where we can give you a pretty accurate explanation of what it's gonna be takes months and months.

We only do a game every few years, so very very few of our game concepts actually become reality, and they often change a lot during development.

Have you ever considered making an Awesomenauts board game? The game is just absolutely dripping with awesome theme that could be put to use in one.

I don't think we've ever seriously pursued that, but our designers might have had ideas for it (we play a lot of boardgames here at the office). Would love to hear your ideas on that though!

What's your take on microtransactions, and the chance of a game been seen as a "cash-grab" rather than a work of passion? I'd say you did a good job on what was necessary for Awesomenauts when going free-to-play, but the MOBA format is very limiting on what options for mtx it can offer.

That question was mainly just to pass automod. Really I wanted to thank you for Awesomenauts. It kept its spot as my most played game on steam for a very long time, but it was dethroned by Rocket League after the April update(4.6).

I'm still a little bitter about the Derpl changes as I had main'd(>98% of games in ~750hrs) him since the cat-days before Starstorm. Managed to even hit L1 and hold a spot in there for a while. I could've probably dealt with the changes, but surprisingly the center-charged traps were the worst part.

Thanks for the awesome game though. SnS doesn't seem like the game for me, but I'll keep an eye out for that unannounced project.

Thanks for the kind words, and sorry to hear about you losing interest in Derpl after his redesign :( Still, anyone who has clocked over 750 hours of 'Nauts deserves a high-five in my book!

For microtransactions, I think it's a complicated subject. The fine line between being a 'cash-grab' and having 'good game design' is sometimes a bit blurry. Whether it's considered one of the two is hard to predict, sometimes.

Most of the complaints about microtransactions are about these systems getting in the way of a player enjoying themselves, but the exact same systems might still have worked fine in other titles. I'm happy with how things turned out with 'Nauts though!

Hey guys, thanks for Awesomenauts! Such a fun game to play from time to time, man.

My two questions:

1. Who worked on the music for Awesomenauts? It’s got such a fun sound to it, so props to them.

2. What sorts of projects are you looking towards next? Are you going to be putting Awesomenauts on the back burner for now, or are you thinking of trying to revitalize it at some point within the next few months? (Has Awesomenauts has its run?)

Thanks for playing! The audio and music in Awesomenauts was done by the people at Sonic Picnic. We also worked with them on both installments of Swords & Soldiers.

Now that Swords & Soldiers has made it to release we're gonna take some time to see what's next. There still plenty of cool ideas for 'Nauts and we also have something new in the works, and lots of wishes for Swords & Soldiers... and only so little time. Awesomenauts has been out for over six years though, and we've been working on it for about nine years by now. So while it might be a bit much to say that it has had its run, we currently don't have any ambitious plans like Starstorm, Overdrive, or the F2P transition.

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After first class Linux support in the past, I notice you've gone Windows-only this time. Is a port planned?

Linux for 'Nauts was also added after launch, after we noticed the game kept going strong and found there would be a good audience for it. We're kind of approaching it the same way, and it's very high on our list of things that we'd like to do (along with Mac support, of course).

I’m graduating college in December, and I hope it’s okay to ask this! But, are you looking for an intern? I will have a degree in Interactive Media and Game Design, and I’m just looking for any advice.

What kind of internship would you be looking for? We have internships listed on our official site.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). Would be happy to talk about stuff like that!

What's the most horrible mistake your company has ever made, and how did you correct it?

This is a great question but nothing really comes to mind. Sorry :(

What can a gift copy of awesomenauts be used for now since it went free to play? My friend bought an extra years ago and still has it in his steam gift inventory. I think it's a funny momento to when he bought the game and it went on sale the next day. Also who's your favorite naut?

It currently gives three characters - I think it's Froggy, Lonestar, and Scoop.

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For my favorite 'Naut... I'd say Ted I guess. Guns & muscles.

No xbox release? :(

Not at this point, but we haven't ruled that out. There's only so much we can do at one time.

Do you have any post-release plans for SnS2 multiplayer?

We're looking at balance feedback and bugs mostly right now, and are open to suggestions for what to do in terms of additional features / content / etc. We'll take it as we go, listen to how players are enjoying the game, and maybe what they enjoy a little less, and make our plans based on that!

that sounds rad, I'm enjoying the multiplayer a lot, already played the single player on Wii U

if there's a spot to dump balance stuff then I'll do that cuz I just played like 35 rounds and I have OPINIONS

You can join us on our forums to share your feedback: https://www.awesomenauts.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=22

To discuss your thoughts with other players, you could join our community Discord: discord.gg/ronimo

Zijn kokosnoten specerijen?

I actually don't know. I'd guess it's fruit?

Raden jullie een game/media gerichte studie aan en zo ja, welke?

Het hangt er een beetje vanaf wat je wilt, eigenlijk. Er zijn genoeg goede studies, maar er zijn ook veel paden die je kunt bewandelen om uiteindelijk in de game-industrie terecht te komen.

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Ik denk wel dat het goed is om te weten dat er heel veel studenten in deze richtingen zijn, en dat er aardig veel concurrentie is voor een relatief klein aantal banen. Je zult tijdens je studie hard moeten knallen om op te vallen, en om een goede stageplek te bemachtigen.

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De NHTV in Breda en HKU hebben prima studies voor game-gerelateerde richtingen, maar ze zijn wel erg verschillend van elkaar. Ook de HVA en de Hogeschool Groningen doen studies in deze richting, maar daar weet ik persoonlijk wat minder van.

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Is this just a hack n’ slash, or an extreeeeme hack n’ slash?

Swords and Soldiers 2 is actually a side-scrolling RTS game. Awesomenauts is a side-scrolling action platformer, or 2D MOBA if you will!

Knowing that gamers might say that your game is shit, what would you do?

That's OK. People can dislike the game, but I'm super proud of what it has become and had a lot of fun with it already :)

Edit: if you meant this in a more general sense, I would recommend you let people play your game and specifically ask them to complain about it. Just listen to what ticks them off, in some way. "Live" players are probably gonna have bigger problems with it when they get their hands on it, so then you at least know what to expect from their feedback. Take the time to address this ahead of launch, if you can.