Buy the banner saga factions6/20/2023 Conversation takes cues from the work we did while at BioWare, though we want to focus on the choices that change actual gameplay. Both the travel scenes shown in the trailer and the conversation scenes are the basis of what drives the gameplay forward, and a lot of decisions you make will be about managing the needs of your caravan of survivors. Sure, the single player game as we pitched it is heavily focused on a dialogue-driven story. For people who haven’t been following the updates or missed out on the kickstarter, could you tell us a little bit about what additional gameplay the single player content will have differently than Factions? Each chapter of The Banner Saga will include more characters and gameplay, so we definitely want them to be a part of Factions as well.ĥ. We want to roll out any additional systems we do for the single player game through Factions to let players try them out- that’s the plan, anyway. No, Factions is always going to be a work in progress and right now it’s at its most bare. Do you see Factions as a finished project now, or will there be any more development of it? And as Stoic continues to work on each chapter of The Banner Saga, will there be additional content for Factions? ![]() It’s always been important to us that everything we make is for the single player game- that’s the whole point, right?- what you see now will be how the game plays later.Ĥ. We’ve also added huge systems to the combat for the better that we couldn’t have done without player feedback, including the horn, pillage mode and tons of usability improvements like the info banner. For example, archers used to not be able to move and shoot, we used to have uneven turn order that led to death spirals and rank 2 and 3 abilities were all way overpowered. We’ve already integrated a vast amount of improvement to the game from the six or so months that we’ve been testing with players. ![]() What aspects are you analyzing for developing the single player content? And are you planning on differentiating the tactical gameplay between both the single and multiplayer modes? In the original kickstarter video and through updates released, you talked about how the plan is to use Factions as a way of play testing and balancing the mechanics for the single player game. We’ll eventually want to have the game on as many platforms as we can.ģ. We don’t have that PC vs console mentality, though. As a start-up indie company we don’t have access to development deals with Microsoft or Sony and we don’t have easy access to dev kits. Well, honestly I don’t think it goes much deeper than the fact that we’re developing on PCs and Macs. What was the inspiration behind wanting to create a tactical RPG for the PC? One of the many great aspects behind The Banner Saga is the fact that it is a tactical RPG for the PC, which has been a genre that has for a while been a focus on consoles and handhelds. I’m most happy about the fact that we created something that feels new.Ģ. We tinkered with all kinds of additional aspects to the game but found that even without slews of items and hundreds of abilities the combat was already complex enough. I think that restraint of having to work within the boundaries of something that is simple enough to do the math ourselves while still coming up with something that would feel deep and nuanced was what resulted in our current combat. We intentionally moved away from iterating on existing systems. Glad you like it! Early when we started the project, Arnie and I were literally sitting around a chess board coming up with the system. What were the initial steps in coming up with the design of the combat system? ![]() Even within the limits of the available units the mechanics have a unique feel to it. ![]() From playing Factions, the tactical gameplay has been really interesting to mess around with. After trying out Factions I sent some questions to lead designer Alex Thomas about The Banner Saga’s development and the recent discussions about the game.ġ. The interesting combat system, excellent art style and promise of a deep singleplayer campaign were all major hooks for its success.Īs we talked about last week there were criticisms levied against Stoic following the release of their free to play version of the game – The Banner Saga: Factions, and a Gamasutra article written against them. The Banner Saga by Stoic is another example of a massive success story on kickstarter: Earning about 7 times what they were asking for to fund the project.
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