[The Banner Saga] Turn-based Isometric Cartoon Viking Ruckus

Tiger Burning

http://store.steampowered.com/app/237990/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIH0vS9AG4

Oh glorious fruit of the Kickstarter tree, a turn-based tactical role-playing game for the pee cee. Praise Woden.



With very nice hand-drawn animations and cinematics. And helmets with horns. And sometimes horns with no helmets at all.





Out now on Steam. And elsewhere.

Brew

Oh, I am so getting this as soon as I get home. The kickstarter was pretty interesting but I wasn't expecting it to hit so soon.

bobAkirafett

FYI the steam version just released is the multiplayer/test version of the game. The kickstarter was for a fully fledged single player game, which isn't going to be released until late summer.

AvalonGuard

This looks like a game I'll get for the single player. I'm terrible at strategy, but that art man.

Unknown

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Richard

Looking forward to the single player version of this, the artwork is beautiful. The multiplayer part wasn't that engaging, though I only tried one match. Should give it another try but heard some negative things regarding how your group earns renown (experience).

Mojo_Jojo

The multiplayer version of this created a bit of an uproar with project backers.

Their issue is that the company have spaffed away a lot of time and money and something that was not really the key deliverable (i.e. doing this free to play multiplayer thing rather than the actual game). The counter is that the core bits are most likely the same, so doing it this way lets the company set up an income stream while they do the single player game.

RainbowDespair

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

The counter is that the core bits are most likely the same, so doing it this way lets the company set up an income stream while they do the single player game.

The kickstarter raised $700k+. At the time of the kickstarter, their team consisted of 3 people. They shouldn't need an additional income stream at this point unless they've drastically increased the size of their team.

TychoCelchuuu

The company website suggests that it's still just 3 people. 3 very rich people now, I guess. Still, I didn't pledge for the game so it's pretty sweet that I get a free game out of the deal.

DeMoN

Eh, I backed them and I don't mind at all. It's not like they stopped making the singleplayer game, and now there's this free multiplayer thing that I can get my friends to try out.

Wyvern

Well, a multiplayer game is a pretty good way to test your game mechanics. Put two people against each other in a competitive environment and you can be sure that they'll try their damnedest to find any overpowered tactics or exploits they can.

I haven't had a chance to check out the game yet, but I already have it installed. I didn't actually back the kickstarter, but it definitely caught my attention, so I'm looking forward to seeing how things are coming along.

Drovek

This seems enjoyable.

Maybe it is.

I could maybe find out if it managed to start and connect. :P

Rhan9

I've played the Factions thing a bit. Seems fairly enjoyable, but they've completely castrated the ability to play against friends. I understand that there's the aspect of possible exploiting, but getting no renown or kills from playing against friends kind of makes it pointless to play this, as I'd rather not have to grind pubs to get the currency for customization.

Todesbart

Played two matches and I'm not sure if it's because I only have the standard units so far but archers seem fairly powerful. Out of the two games I've played I've lost one because my opponent rocked three archers in that game instead of the two from the starting setup.

Mukk

Is there a point where the players are evenly matched as far as mechanics go? I found it a little annoying that I was facing opponents who had numerically better teams because they'd played more.

Gabriel94

well, Ive played it, at first the archers are plain great, but then you start to realize that, even if they are a key element, you cant do a team of 3 archers against a tanky team composition, so even if at first it actually works, when you have played several games you already have some tactics to play against them, so, backbitters appear, then you have trouble my friend, after a few other games you start to see how to counter them, its strategy, and a fun game to play, though, there is a point where you may see it like a more casual game, but its free, try it. About the question about the evenly matched, well, apparently they are trying to solve that by doing a second promotion, you can always avoid these and dont promote, playing against people fairly new, but the game tries to match you fairly depending on your time waiting, if you are on queue for too long, you may be the underdog, if you win though, there is a tasty bonus renown.

conix

I just downloaded this game today and found it pretty fun, albeit really really friggin slow. Probably the prettiest tactics game I've ever played - I feel like I'm playing some Viking cartoon.

On archers: I think they're fairly strong, but I prefer beefy melee humans over them any day. Archers work the best when there's a huge armor break battle going on and they're properly walled off. I don't know if it's the people I'm playing or what, but I find it pretty easy to run up to promoted archers and just one/two ko them with thrashers/etc.

Edit: Okay I take that back. Well positioned archers are really freaking strong. The pool of willpower they get to use is super useful.

Wassermelone

Just on an informational level, the backgrounds in the game are heavily inspired by american artist Eyvind Earle, probably most well known by most people for backgrounds in Sleeping Beauty

Darmak

Everyone knows that Factions was announced and planned when they initially set up the Kickstarter, right? It was one of the things they've always said they're going to do, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody. It's not like they went behind everyone's backs and secretly wasted time and money on this. They were upfront and said they were going to release a multiplayer-only version before the single player version.

Darmak

myzcxzzt wrote: »

The kickstarter was for a fully fledged single player game, which isn't going to be released until late summer.

Look at their initial video on their Kickstarter page. They clearly state they would release a free, multiplayer version of the game prior to releasing the singleplayer version. Now, they initially planned to release the singleplayer version shortly thereafter but they've expanded on the game and so it's taken longer than anticipated, true, but it doesn't change the fact that they stated this upfront.

Archsorcerer

This might be of interest: http://www.onlysp.com/the-banner-saga-single-player-campaign-gets-big-preorder-incentive/

At 1PM Eastern on January 14th, the Viking-themed RPG The Banner Saga will finally make its single player debut on PC. Since February 2013, the Indie series has been a multiplayer-only free to play game known as The Banner Saga: Factions. Tomorrow’s single player release has a starting price of $24.99, which is about what you’d expect for a well hyped Indie title, but if you happen to check Steam or any other PC digital retailer you’ll notice if you preorder before the 1PM deadline there’s a $5 drop to $19.99. Better still, if you preorder from GameFly, you can use a 20% off coupon code dropping the price even further.

GameFly has The Banner Saga for only $15.99 after applying coupon code GFDJAN20 at checkout. That’s a solid 36% discount off the $24.99 MSRP. Not bad for a preorder incentive.

In addition to the discount, preorders get the “Insane Viking Pack” DLC, which includes 3 in-game bonuses. The first is an exclusive character, Tryggvi, who is adept at using his spear in combat. You also get the Tryggvi’s pearl necklace, with its 10% chance to do 2x damage. Lastly you get 3 extra soundtrack scores, not included in the base game.

...

Frei

Yeah I'm looking forward to this tomorrow. Turn based/grid based strategy RPGs are my favorite games and from what I've gathered from following this it's going to have a lot of things I like: decisions with actual consequence, perma-death, a story with multiple paths, etc. I'm really interested in the idea that the game still goes on if you lose a battle, but the outcome of that will usually be quite bad. That's going to lead to a lot of different scenarios playing out. I guess this is just the first part in a 3 part series, too, so more to look forward to.

cckerberos

And it's only 14 months late!

It'll be interesting to see how the "bad path" stuff works. I remember that Wing Commander stopped including that stuff because they decided that it was too much work for something that few players would experience (since people would rather just reload and continue on the "good path").

Hardtarget

Kinda want to jump on the gamefly deal but I missed the kickstarter, when it was only $10... which makes me want to wait for a deal when it's $10 again.

uuugh stupid being cheap. No reviews out yet either so I just don't know.

Frei

I'll post impressions later on.

gjaustin

I had completely forgotten this was coming out and had almost forgotten I'd backed it.

I'm almost glad I caught a cold and stayed home sick today! (Almost)

Movitz

There's a Eurogamer review up. They seem to like the game but I only read the intro and looked at the score, didn't want to spoil anything.

Hardtarget

Lots of reviews have come out this morning, a ton of 8/10 scores, caved and bought it for the gamefly discount before it goes away in an hour. Pre-loading now!

Frei

launch trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIH0vS9AG4

I really like the game's animation and music... makes me feel nostalgic.

Elvenshae

WHY IS THIS NOT UNLOCKED FOR ME?

I HAVE A LUNCHBREAK!

Drunken Bastard

Wow, really nice game from the half hour I stuck my nose in it.

Hard as Nails though..from what i can tell so far. 4th fight in they don't pull any punches.

But I really like the setting, art style and narrative so far.
Combat seems complex enough, I already lost a Viking due to my noobness

Frei

Yeah I'm on normal and combat is hard as hell. I'm lucky to make it out with less than two injuries even early on (not counting the tutorial battles). I have a feeling it's going to open up a bit tactically though when I get some more warriors and also get to level up/customize my people some.

Grove

I only fired it up for 20 minutes or so, but I really like what I'm seeing. I'm glad I backed it.

From the sounds of it though, I might play on easy the first time just to get a feel for it.

Do we know how long the campaign is suppose to be?

Frei

supposed to be 10-15 for a single play through, but there are multiple paths throughout so you could probably play it a couple times and have it be reasonably different.

Hardtarget

So i'm wondering if I should turn this baby down to Easy when I play tonight as I want the story and don't really have time to just keep replaying levels over and over again. RockPaperShotgun also said the game is brutally hard, probably too hard.

Phonehand

gah why am i at work

vegeta_666

Hardtarget wrote: »

So i'm wondering if I should turn this baby down to Easy when I play tonight as I want the story and don't really have time to just keep replaying levels over and over again. RockPaperShotgun also said the game is brutally hard, probably too hard.

I agree, I'm going to be turning it down to easy. I can't seem to make it through the first Dredge battle without losing a guy, it's frustrating.

Alucard6986

one lesson I learned retrying the dredge battles in the early game--don't go overboard attacking armor. I was wasting a lot of turns trying to get them to 0 before attacking their strength.

If you have a guy that can take out half their strength even at full armor, go for it.

Alucard6986

I'm having more trouble with the rolelplaying aspect than the battles themselves.

I always seem to make the wrong call...

cckerberos

I played a bit of the multiplayer, but it was long enough ago that I've already forgotten anything useful I might've learned.

RPS recommended not turning the difficulty down to easy, saying that without the challenge the fights get really, really boring.

Hardtarget

cckerberos wrote: »

RPS recommended not turning the difficulty down to easy, saying that without the challenge the fights get really, really boring.

hm good to know