Small Wonders has just recently announced that Battle of Puppets, their really awesome looking strategy game has just been released!

Here is the description:

Battle of Puppets casts its player in the role of a silent puppeteer, who must strategically control his hordes of marionette minions and send them across the show stage. The goal is to perform your act on Broadway, but first, they must travel across the country, taking on opposing puppets at each stop!

Touting a vibrant artistic style, Battle of Puppets combines beautiful graphics, the hallowed art of puppetry, and ruthless combat! Players select and perform their opera in a series of 22 American theatres, each with its own custom backdrop of famous landmarks. Each competition then lets the puppeteer strategically build units, upgrade their castle and outposts, and even cast spells using written gestures to destroy the opposing forces and win the affection of the crowd.

Each of the 5 operas vary significantly in terms of relative strengths and weaknesses, unit types, building speeds, and most interestingly, how they are affected by changing weather conditions. Choosing the best route across the country based on weather patterns is just one of the compelling strategic decisions players make in Battle of Puppets!

There are also 6 professions and an extra race to unlock as the campaigns progress! Professions let players perform magic to sway the course of battle on stage, and are activated by executing unique gestures. Learn to repair your troops, mind control the enemy, boo the opposition, and more! Also, use the unlockable race to take on the hard mode campaign.

Features:

Maps:
• 22 unique locations, each with changing backdrops for day and night.

Armies:
• play as any of the 5 different armies, each representing famous operas.
• 20 distinctive unit types

Modes:
• 3 game-play modes
• Battleground – destroy the enemy castle
• Survival – stay alive!
• Fast Battleground – destroy the enemy fast
• 3 difficulty levels
• 3 distict user profiles

Professions:
• 6 unlockable professions let players cast magic on the enemy

Climate:
• Multiple climates that affect your troops in battle

Languages
• English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese and French.

And a gameplay video:

VERY cool game, I love the concept of it. We’ll try to get a review up as soon as we can get our hands on it!