Codex Interview RPG Codex Interview: The Banner Saga, 2D Turn-Based Strategy RPG

[felipepepe]

It's also worth mentioning that Braid - the pretentious indie puzzler - was developed to be released on XBAWKZ LIVE. Afaik there are some pretty steep entry fees just ot get your product on Microsofts online store. I recall some other thread mentioning fees of ~50k just to release a patch for a store-bought game.

Ultimately, look at it this way. A quick google-fu

lists $95k as the average annual salary for a videogame programmer in the kwa. Less ~20% or so in income tax (wikipedia lists it as 10%-35%, not sure which bracket $95k falls into) leaves us with 76k worth of kickstarter jewgoldz per team member. We can assume most one-time expenses (computers, software licenses) are already paid, since the team is already producing content. So far as we are aware, there are 3 of them. This means every 228k (well 236k before the kickstarter/amazon cut) jewgold they accumulate will pay for a year of development. As the developers already worked on the game before going kickstarter, we can also assume they have some capital of their own set aside to work on the project. With their projected final release being 8 months from now - kickstarter lists expected release as Nov 2012 - 100k should cover 2/3rds of the remaining development costs. With the recent trend of kickstarters for games going vastly over target (and this one seems to be no different) there is a very high likelyhood that it'll end up covering the entirety of the development costs with the current (assumed) 3-man team, freeing funds for hiring additional team members.

Just one mistake: This time developers are also the owners of the game, so their real pay should come from sales when the game is released, not from paying themselves during development. While I don't expect them to go like Tim Cain and give up on all salary while making the game, they shoudn't take money from the game to pay themselves more than enough for a confortable living payment, as it's an investment, not a "regular job".

I have no idea how living costs are where they live, but if instead of 7k a month they get 4-5k, they should be able to finish the game just fine with 100k.

100% backed. Hope it's worth the 10 bucks I threw in.

 

[Aeschylus]

Congratulations to Stoic on the successful campaign. Now go make a good game!

 

[mindx2]

Well, darn it! I now went ahead and pledged for this one too!! I really hope those interested in going the Kickstarter route start to space these things out a little more!! I'm a sucker for some of these tiers and all the cool little extras......

 

[Murk]

Guess I'm going the 50 dollar option as that poster is pretty gatdamn sweet.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Yeah, it really is. I don't particularly have a good place to put it, and I don't really feel like plonking down $50 for the game due to how much of it is an unknown quantity, but I do lust after that poster. Which is astounding since 99% of all videogame posters/lithographs/pretty pictures are shit.

Maybe if chapter 1 turns out good and they kickstart chapter 2 they'll include that poster again and I might snag it the second time around.

 

[OSK]

You won't instantly heal up after battle, it will take time, which can be a problem if you have wounded characters jumping back into battle too soon.

Strangely, this simple idea interests me the most. I'm thinking back to my playthroughs of Tactics Ogre and FFT, where I'd always use a large, diverse team. Even though it provided me with tons of options to handle a particular battle, I was always under-leveled from spreading experience too thin. This idea alone helps bolster my preferred playstyle.

 

[Excommunicator]

To be honest, I am looking forward to this one more than either Wasteland 2 or Double Fine's adventure. It just seems to hit the right spots.

I shall contribute if I can find a way to do so easily. I have had trouble with Amazon before.

 

[Johannes]

Chewbot: I have to admit, every time I see you comment, I get more excited for the game. You're certainly doing a good job in talking the talk. Particularly excited about units losing effectiveness the closer to death they are.

Really? I've never found death spirals to be particularly exiting in tactical combat. All they do is to make front-loaded damage and spamming ranged attacks even more important than usual.

Well, it gives you more options than focus-firing single enemies down at a time, when other kind of damage is helpful in mitigating their dmg output too.

 

[Kitako]

[...] lot of replies to lot of questions [...]

This is good marketing, not throwing your game in "space" or fucking petion government.

Waiting paycheck (and maybe a Codex drive like for W2?) to give some hard earned money.

Damn kickstarters, no money for them when just 3 weeks ago I dumped a bag of gold for a KoA Reckoning, I feel so bad inside.

 

[Tel Prydain]

I like the idea that stuff happens in the world without you, so your choices effect the game (being there for the or not, having harder battles if you get there late, having easy battles if you get their early). Reminds me a little of Starcontrol 2. I loved that wars and events were happening all around you,

 

[MetalCraze]

This is a sad interview. It basically sounds like they are gathering all those money to make a casual strategy for morons.

Stoic is living in the world where Silent Storm, Jagged Alliance 2 and even Fallout Tactics never happened. Not even simplistic XCom or JA1. Extremely primitive Final Fantasy Tactics is the influece for combat. Oh man

Should've stayed back in Bioware. EA would gladly finance this shit for mobile phones.

 

[Aeschylus]

Is it a kind of Codex rite of passage to finally lose patience and add Skyway to your ignore list? :: added ::

On topic, there's been an interesting update on the Kickstarter RE: the things they plan to do with increased funding. It's worth a look.

 

[Johannes]

This is a sad interview. It basically sounds like they are gathering all those money to make a casual strategy for morons.

Stoic is living in the world where Silent Storm, Jagged Alliance 2 and even Fallout Tactics never happened. Not even simplistic XCom or JA1. Extremely primitive Final Fantasy Tactics is the influece for combat. Oh man

Should've stayed back in Bioware. EA would gladly finance this shit for mobile phones.

Chess is even more "primitive" than FFT, but somehow it still has some depth. Well, depends on if you actually care about tactical challenge or prefer to have a million ways in which to fuck the clueless AI up with.

 

[MetalCraze]

Yes chess is even crappier example. But even the Evil Bioware devs from Stoic won't go that low.

Well, depends on if you actually care about tactical challenge or prefer to have a million ways in which to fuck the clueless AI up with.

So having stats, skills, stances, ballistics, bullet tracing, noise levels, line of sight, crafting, weapon upgrades and wear, complex inventory with bags and belts, manned artillery, medic system with injuries < all of which AI has too > equals fucking the totally clueless AI (because it can't be better) but just moving bot figures around and shooting at the inevitably ubersmart enemy (and not just as dumb) until it dies = is a fucking tactical challenge.

Or do you mean it's actually the other way around?

 

[Johannes]

The more complex a game becomes, the easier it gets to break the system when playing against an AI, or it becomes harder to balance right to put it another way. Shouldn't be too hard a concept to grasp.
Basically JA2 and SS are hard to learn but easy to master, while a simpler game is obviously easier to learn but it's also easier to make a hard to master game.

When you add a feature to to the tactical combat of a sp game, you should ask yourself - can I code the AI to use it?

 

[Stinger]

Are we seriously calling Chess a crappy turn based strategy game?

 

[deuxhero]

Yes. This is the Codex.

You have been here a year and you haven't learned this stuff yet?

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Y'all have $25 of my moneys.

Please use my moneys wisely for good and not evil.

skyway:

 

[FUDU]

Pay no attention to skyway/metalcraze, he hates everything..............until he's played it at least 7 times. It's just kind of his stick. Too many "distilled" potatoes.

 

[Murk]

He's basically Volourn, but with slightly better spelling (ironically.)

 

[SerratedBiz]

Skyway bashing is the new fad and he deserves it sometimes, but how do you explain complex systems = hard to learn, easy to master and simple systems = easy to learn, hard to master? I mean, is this a new rule no one seems to know about? Following the earlier example on chess, which is a really fucking complex game, are you actually trying to imply it's easy to master?

The discussion might be out of place because Banner Saga will never be JA2 or SS or in that level of complexity, and it's not trying to be. Whether that's right or wrong for a developer these days, feel free to DISCUSS all you want. But please, this is supposed to be a place for rational arguments rather than fist harvesting.

 

[oldmanpaco]

The guys are already at 193K.

I was worried they wouldn't even meet their goal and now they look poised to get well over 250K.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Following the earlier example on chess, which is a really fucking complex game, are you actually trying to imply it's easy to master?

Lolwut

8 year olds can learn how to play chess, genius. I know because I did it.
There's half a dozen kinds of 'unit' and all you need to know about them is where they can move. The complex stuff is due to the fact people spent years formalising moves and whatnot. But, anyone can play chess without knowing any of that shit, or even of all of that shit; they will lose to someone who does, but hey, that's because the latter spent years mastering the game. Geddit?

Maybe you'd like to use Go as your next example of a complicated game.

 

[Aeschylus]

Following the earlier example on chess, which is a really fucking complex game, are you actually trying to imply it's easy to master?

Lolwut

8 year olds can learn how to play chess, genius. I know because I did it.

There's a pretty big difference between "Learn" and "Master".

Maybe you'd like to use Go as your next example of a complicated game.

... now you're just being intentionally obtuse. People in Asia quite literally train full time from a young age to learn how to play Go.

 

[Lord Rocket]

Jesus Christ.

Let's go through this again:

Skyway: usual skyway shit, something about complexity making everything better blah blah
Johannes: Nah bro, simple games can have a lot of depth to them. Check it: chess. Complex games are frequently hard to learn but easy to master vs. many simple games which are easy to learn but hard to master.
SerratedBiz: NO CHESS IS HARD TO LEARN BECAUSE IT IS VERY COMPLEX
Me: No it isn't, fuck you, you don't know the difference between 'learn' and 'master'
You: No it isn't, fuck YOU, you don't know the difference between 'learn' and 'master', GO IS SUPER HARD TO LEARN

Is a game where you put stones on a board hard to learn? I'm pretty sure those kids are training to get good at the game, or 'master' it if you prefer, not to learn the hand-eye coordination to drop a fucking stone.

tl;dr reading is hard to master