The Banner Saga - Kickstarter 723% Successful

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The Banner Saga is a PC/Mac game developed by the new independent studio Stoic, founded by a team of three ex-Bioware developers. Well, let me quote one of the developers:

Alex Thomas wrote:

Do you miss the classic turn-based strategy of Final Fantasy Tactics or Shining Force? Do you enjoy the dynamic event system with persistent consequences found in King of Dragon Pass? Do you care for semi-realistically depicted vikings in any way? How about the hand-drawn animation found in Myth or Dragon’s Lair? Do you enjoy the ability to affect the outcome of a story through dialogue ala The Witcher? Well some of the leads who worked at BioWare did and they quit their day jobs to make a game with all these things.

It’s been described officially as “role playing meets turn-based strategy, wrapped into an adventure mini-series about vikings”.

So hot on the heels of DoubleFine and Wasteland 2, The Banner Saga is on Kickstarter. They've reached their $100,00 goal in just a few days, and have a month left on their fund. Typical tiered deal, with $10 basically pre-ordering the game and extra goodies for every tier above that.

It is an episodic game and the kickstarter is only for chapter 1, out of 3 planned chapters. Episodic game has a poor reputation, so they've addressed it in their kickstarter page.

Stoic on why an episodic game wrote:

The Banner Saga as it exists in this Kickstarter will be a complete game. In terms of a larger story arc, it represents the first part of a three-part story that has already been planned out. We intend to release each subsequent chapter as a complete game. We don't yet have a timeline for the full trilogy, as our first priority is to complete Chapter 1 of The Banner Saga and see where that takes us!

Our goal is that when all chapters are complete, each game will both stand on their own, AND form a fantastic and cohesive whole, like any great series of books, movies, or games.

Chapter 1 of the game will not be a short 2-hour fling. Depending on how much we raise during this campaign the length of the game will vary.

The decisions you make and characters you build in Chapter 1 of the game will carry over into the other chapters of the game.

Why not just make one complete game from the start? Developing all three parts of the game could take some time and as an indie developer we can't afford to fund a 2-year development cycle. We decided to make it into a trilogy to keep people interested in the game and get it to players sooner.

I've already thrown my money at them, I just had to have that poster.
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/qId2h.jpg)

You sold me when you said "Shining Force".

The script and animation in that trailer are better than a lot of animated films. Pretty impressive.

Well, they met their goal in 2 days. Pretty awesome.

I kicked my 10 bucks in. We need more turn-based strategies. And more Vikings. And more ex-Bioware stuff.

Datyedyeguy wrote:

You sold me when you said "King of Dragon Pass". :)

Fixed to represent my poison of choice.

I so wish I had enough cash to give them to get that awesome framed landscape.

Well, they broke $150,000 last night and have raised another $15,000 since then. It looks like they will nearly certainly reach $200,000. Since they exceeded their goal, Stoic is considering using the extra money to port the game to extra platforms and translate it to languages other than English. If you are a backer, in their project updates Stoic has put up surveys to collect feedback on what platforms and languages people want the game to come out in.

Heh, one of the translation choices is Redneck. I was tempted to vote for that just to see.

Yeah, I pitched in $10 the day it went up. Looks cool.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Heh, one of the translation choices is Redneck. I was tempted to vote for that just to see.

HA! Quite tempting, just for the lulz.

The art style is amazing.

And, backed. $10. I'd do $25, but I really wish Kickstarter game projects would start making prominent note of their system requirements. That doesn't look terribly heavyweight, but I've never tried anything with that sort of art.

I went in for $50 the other day. And voted for other: "Old Norse".

MeatMan wrote:

Yeah, I pitched in $10 the day it went up. Looks cool.

Yup, me too. Instantly.

They've posted a new announcement, and an important one if you were worried about the episodic content bit.

Stoic wrote:

We weren't planning on sending this out until Monday, but we couldn't help but notice over the weekend that about 8000 people like you have donated over a quarter-million dollars in under a week, which is, frankly, extraordinarily humbling.

That's why after trying to figure out how we can really express our gratitude we decided to give you free stuff. In a week filled with more good will than we've ever seen in our lives before, we're really proud to announce that anyone who pledges/has already pledged $50 or up will get all three parts of The Banner Saga - the full game - for free. We came into this Kickstarter campaign very hesitant about making promises about the second and third chapter but we think (fingers crossed!) that we're past worrying about that now.

Let's put it this way: to everyone who donated $50, you've already unconditionally told us that you have enough faith in us to put up 500% of the game's price to support us. We think you deserve the full game, and then some.

An immeasurable thanks to all of our backers; this is beyond anything we could have imagined.

-Alex, Arnie and John

They mention Myth as inspiration for some aspects of the animation. I will donate just for that...

When oh when will there be a Myth kick starter!!!

Greg wrote:

They mention Myth as inspiration for some aspects of the animation. I will donate just for that...

When oh when will there be a Myth kick starter!!!

Seconded. There's opportunities now for a lot of our long lost loves. Myth, Sierra games... Firefly?

Edit: Awesome looking game, super sexy poster.... button. Sold.

I upped my pledge to 50$ when they announced people who pledge 50$ or more will receive the full game

Plus I get a super duper poster

Oh hey, I hadn't seen that announcement yet. Cool.

Ah, apparently they updated with a comment on the requirements, at least:

While we don't yet know the exact numbers (and we're still actively optimizing the game), being completely 2D gives us the advantage of running at a fairly low minimum spec. We'll give you specifics as soon as we know ourselves.

Last updated: Sunday Mar 25, 4:30pm EDT

This game is SO getting my money. It's getting it hard and fast.

I found this pretty interesting, this from the writer/designer of the game, in reply to a question about if the setting and studio name was inspired by How to Train Your Dragon.

Alex Thomas wrote:

Do you mean "How to Train Your Dragon"? Not at all, actually. It was a decent movie but really has almost nothing in common with us, it's very high fantasy and for kids. I didn't realize the father's name was Stoic the Vast until watching it for roughly the third time. Plus, we don't have dragons. I was a lot more inspired by The Black Company, which I picked up after reading the Myth LP by Johnny Law twice. We're also fans of Valhalla Rising and Northlanders.

For me this is fantastic news, "inspired by The Black Company" is great to hear.

I was a lot more inspired by The Black Company

I should give them more money. Most definitely.

Concept looks interesting but that art style looks really cheap and amateurish. I'll wait and see what the finished product looks like.

I'm just not sold on the turn-based strategy side of this. The rest of it looks amazing, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy the main gamplay.

Who am I kidding? I'll contribute.

kuddles wrote:

Concept looks interesting but that art style looks really cheap and amateurish. I'll wait and see what the finished product looks like.

Really?

That's what sold me the game

I luuuuv 2d

kuddles wrote:

Concept looks interesting but that art style looks really cheap and amateurish. I'll wait and see what the finished product looks like.

What vision of paradise have you been drowning in that makes the art look cheap?

kuddles wrote:

Concept looks interesting but that art style looks really cheap and amateurish. I'll wait and see what the finished product looks like.

Whoa... seriously? You're not just trolling when you say this? The art sold me on the game!

kuddles wrote:

Concept looks interesting but that art style looks really cheap and amateurish. I'll wait and see what the finished product looks like.

Whoa... seriously? You're not just trolling when you say this? The art sold me on the game!

I don't know. The art style looks completely generic to me, I feel like I've seen that exact same look in a thousand games on Facebook or Newgrounds. There's no distinction in the faces or in the landscapes or doing anything remarkable with shading at all.

Also, could someone point me to a real example of a bad-looking 2D game? I feel like there are literally hundreds of these indie games coming out that don't look very impressive but since they are 2D, suddenly everybody talks about how "gorgeous" it is.

All I see is an awesome Monty Python-esque game. I'm not seeing this look all over the place. It's got a retro style to the art, which is what I like. Looks like The Hobbit that was done by Topcraft and not something more "modern" like Dragon Age Legends.

Oh, and I think Dragon Age Legends looks pretty bad.

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