The Banner Saga

[Scott Tortorice]

Vikings and turn-based combat...what's not to love?!?

The Banner Saga

...role-playing meets turn-based strategy, wrapped into an adventure mini-series about vikings.

Travel through stunning landscapes straight out of an animated film as your party escapes what could be the end of everything. Battle painstakingly hand-animated foes in strategic, turn-based combat. Make decisions with real consequences in conversations with people you'll actually care about.

The Banner Saga is a mature game aimed at gamers who appreciate art, story and strategy. Hope you'll join the caravan.

Is it too early to pre-order?

Interview here: http://www.indiegamemag.com/a-moment...ng-full-indie/

[SoccerDJ]

I hope the game play is as good as that art work.

[Rindis]

I'll want to know a lot more before saying anything, but the art style is great.

[Scott Tortorice]

I hate to say it, but it seems more interesting than Elemental already.

[Rindis]

Now I know a little more, and I'm still listening....

Potential, this one has.

[Wodin]

I too am coloured interested, which is a rather fetching Snowy landscape colour.

[Scott Tortorice]

Now on Kickstarter:

The Banner Saga Begins Waving the Kickstarter Flag

"For us, more than anything, The Banner Saga is a chance to take a risk. Here's the bottom line — we wanted to make a game that you can really influence, that feels like a TV miniseries. You're not watching superheroes, you're watching people with their own motivations and desires that you can relate to. You want to see what happens to them and how they deal with conflict."


"That, more than anything, is what we want to capture. We're basing our gameplay on this one imperative, and every system informs another to come back to this idea. We're so desperate to play a game like this — a game for adults about adults, a game that isn't a sex and violence power fantasy, that we're making it ourselves."

Sounds like Crusader Kings 2 to me. That's okay, we definitely could use more games like that!

[Wodin]

Now on Kickstarter:

The Banner Saga Begins Waving the Kickstarter Flag

Sounds like Crusader Kings 2 to me. That's okay, we definitely could use more games like that!

yes but with turn based combat, so that a g=huge plus over CK2 for me. CK2 is superb, though low on long term content, which is easly fixed with dlc etc.

[kawaiku]

For some reason this game's look vaguely reminds me of Winter Voices.

[Scott Tortorice]

Decided to check in with this game after their smashing $750K Kickstarter campaign success. According to the official forum, only 6% of the game is done, but I did find this interesting tidbit on combat:

This is from a regular on the forum (not a dev):

As I understand it, characters/units which are knocked down to 0 health in battle will be "unconscious" and not available to be used in subsequent battles unless the caravan camps to allow them to recover. The team (if I understand correctly) wants you to need to be careful in how you conduct your battles and provide a motivation to conserve your units' health.

If you play poorly and several of your units are severely damaged, you won't be able to use them for subsequent battles without halting the caravan. If your caravan wastes time, things become more rough, and you may miss important plot-things. If you try to press on with a crippled army, you'll be less likely to survive the next encounter.

But they don't want to punish the player in such a way as to force perpetual re-loads of previous saves. That's the big flaw with games like Fire Emblem. You lose a well-liked character, replay the battle, lose him (or a different one) re-load, replay, rinse, repeat. It becomes tedious and awful.

Their goal for TBS is to keep you playing the same save file, and just try to figure out how to press on despite having some casualties. After all, those convalescing units will become available again a little while later.

A dev then replies:

Wow...I could have posted exactly what you wrote. You've apparently been reading our responses, nice stuff.
On a note not related to combat (hint), there will be perma-death in TBS.

&

...we want perma death to be something that had meaning for the player. We don't want the player to lose a main character to some random arrow that they didn't account for. All that would mean is the player would reload the game after combat. In TBS combat will be a battle of attrition of sorts. You DO NOT want to lose a character in a battle because it weakens you for some time to come, but it's not the end of the game for them...keep moving forward, time is of the essence!

Interesting. Seems like they are going with Elemental's scheme where champions do not die, but merely are wounded and unusable for a period of time.

Also, a new pic:

strand_950x534.jpg

This is both a city and the main UI hub. Players will be able to visit different buildings to access all the aspects of the initial Factions portion of the game, from play modes to character building and upgrading areas. You can see here such buildings as the Trophy Tower, Proving Grounds, Weavers Hut, Quarters, Mead House and the main building which is of course the Great Hall. Off in the distance is the ancient and ever looming fort, Ridgehorn. The sigil on the front gate of the city speaks to it's relationship with the cold northern ocean which is accessed by fjords.

As everything in The Banner Saga, the city will evolve as the story unfolds.