Stoic is an independent Studio, which has used the skills and talent of a trio of ex-BioWare developers, Alex Thomas, Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson, to build an all ‘new role playing’ turn based strategy game that, seemingly, has won fans across all platforms.
There are several things new about the game. First, the project is being funded through the ‘crowd-funding’ Kickstarter platform and secondly, it is styled along the classic ‘hand drawn’ Disney cartoon/animations sequences. Third, the game is a RPG but will steer clear of the stock elves, orcs and dwarves and will instead be based on a theme which is largely Viking-inspired.
The game follows a tactical game approach, very similar to games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, and Shining Force that are single-player campaign through turn-based combat. On The Banner Saga, players have a free run on building characters with complementing abilities and who can be controlled by the player.
At its core, the game engages both young and old, as it allows, players to ‘emotionally connect’ with their characters with conversations. This leads to a lot of drama and will greatly influence the final outcome of the story as well as the character’s role in the game.
The Banner Saga developers are exploring options to move it beyond its turn-based combat platform to a free game before the full game is to be released.
With musical score by Austin Wintory, one can expect the same standards and music play as that of Journey. The aim of the game is to offer the ‘animation’ and feel of Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty’s as created by Eyvind Earle, and hence has some spectacular sequences that have the signature touch of hand drawn cartoons. As a game, the aim of the developers is to create a role-play based story that advances with much of excitement, action and combat scenes seen in such as games as Game of Thrones andThe Black Company.
The developers call it an adventure mini-series and it does stay true to it, as players traverse through ‘stunning landscapes‘ escaping at the nick-of –the-time from sure death. What really gets you into the game are the conversation based decisions which turn into ‘real’ consequences that affect the players strongly, since people you begin to care about could drastically be affected by the actions the players choose to adopt.
Kickstarter Funding
The idea of The Banner Saga was placed on Kickstarter for initial funding of $100k, which was simple oversubscribed to reach $400k.
Linux gamers diligently filled out all the survey forms handed out by developers, and have strongly influenced The Banner Saga trio to offer them the chance to play the game on their native open source platform. Therefore, the developers have now announced that after the complete development of the game for the original platforms for which the funding and the development was started-PC and Mac. However, the developers are committed to bringing The Banner Saga immediately afterwards by porting the game to iPad and Linux. Here is to more fun and games for Linux!
Via|ubuntuvibes
