Tom introduced me to Banner Saga, a delightful, viking-themed tactical combat game by Stoic.

I charge into the fray with my Warhawk and Bowmaster, and a medley of other warriors.

It’s super fun to maneuver around opponents and deal epic blows. Sometimes, though, I don’t have the best position. On times when I can land my 40% shots, I am ecstatic.

Juno has blessed me!

Paper Beach, early in the morning

After a quick (and half-priced, thanks to the vouchers gifted to us by Jason and Marissa) breakfast at Banjo’s, a refill on tap water, and a grocery stop for more canned goods and cookies, we took off to Narawntapu National Park (formerly the Asbestos Range National Park, but you can appreciate the rebranding). Here we saw an Australian Copperhead snake (not to be confused with the North American version) almost immediately. The ranger mentioned we might see a Tiger snake, but alas, I have still not seen this striped slitherer.

The thing all writers do best is finding ways to avoid writing.” – Alan Dean Foster

Copperheads and Tiger Snakes live down there

We hiked for quite a few kilometers through a lagoon, along sandy paths, and up and down scrub-covered hills all the way to Copper Cove. In all honesty, it wasn’t the most amazing hike ever, but the burrowing crabs, mesmerizing beach sand, and the time out of the car made it worth it.

Spin-n-Flick crabs is what I call ‘em! They spin into the sand remarkably fast.

After the long walk across the beach back to the car, we saw a wombat and a few forest kangaroos moving around in the midday sun, which seemed unusual. We ate and showered and took off to experience a winery which was closing as we pulled up. The interaction became completely awkward after telling the woman behind the counter where we were from and asking if she was originally from these parts. She said, “No.” I said, “Oh, so where’s home for you?”

Pretty vineyard; arrogant and awkward vintner

She looked at me oddly and said, “I spent a few years in Melbourne, but I’m not from there.” I didn’t know where to go from there, so I just remained quiet. She then said, “I’m from all over.” Okay. We quickly finished our tasting and left. So much for small talk.

Check out the suspension bridge in the distance!

Driving way too fast, we made it back into Launceston in time to see the sun setting in Cataract Gorge and to Westbury in a rain shower which provided a complete rainbow! That night, we slept at Andy’s __-hour Bakery & Car Park (previously known as Andy’s 24-hour Bakery & Car Park, but I guess the opening hours were now in a state of flux). For $6, we had an entire field to ourselves and got a pretty decent sleep.

The next morning, we spent a bit of time using the Bakery’s wifi to do some planning before Dyana got me to run a bit through the town of Westbury. I wound up at the town’s hedge maze, the first such maze of my adult life – it was awesome! Why aren’t there more of these?

The Cathedral

After a feed, we drove to Marooka Cave in Mole Creek and saw glow worms for the first time (apparently, they’re just some sort of maggot that sparkles in the dark). They make the cave look like a planetarium in complete darkness. I sang “Happy Birthday” at some point in the tour because the guide wanted a male to sing in the pitch blackness. It was all I could think of on short notice.

The ferry we DIDN’T take to Tasmania

After the cave, we drove through Devonport and stopped for more groceries in Ulverstone. We showered and slept the night away at Pioneer Park after chatting with a volunteer there who was incredibly nice and enthusiastic about this park. You have to love someone who is passionate about keeping a small rest stop park clean and maintained. That night, I carved out a few hours of writing for The Banner Saga (btw, Factions is now available to play!)

You don’t get shots like these everyday!

The next morning, after Dyana fed a nearby horse a carrot, she drove us to Burnie while I attempted and ultimately failed to get more sleep in the back of the car. We stopped at Fern Glade Park and weathered the incredible cold to walk around the very serene setting along the river. Before heading back to the car, while feeding bread to three very patient ducks, we spotted a peculiar ripple in the river. Upon closer inspection – and without anyone else around – we discovered it was a platypus! We tracked it down river, watching it surface every 15 seconds or so. When we got to the bridge, we captured these photos of this truly Australian animal!

Yup. That’s the Nut I’m cupping.

High on our platypus spotting, we spent a bit of time at the Maker museum in Burnie before heading to Stanley. I was craving a burger, so we treated ourselves to a little time at the Anchor Cafe to eat/write/plan and then went to climb The Nut. That’s right, The Nut. Many a joke were made.

A proper photo of The Nut

We had to pay to take a shower at a carpark before leaving Stanley, so it was a long shower. After a bit more writing time, we drove through the mountains and ended up in a very isolated spot called Hellyer Gorge. We saw one other car that night, I failed to start a campfire again (to be fair, the firewood left by some mystery camper was wet!), and worried myself to sleep after hearing what I can only assume was a Tasmanian Tiger snoring in the tree above us.

A look around The Nut

Next up, Cradle Mountain, the Franklin-Gordon River, and more!

Stop me if you’ve heard about this one already. I’m usually the last to know about these projects.

I’ve followed a lot of Kickstarter projects over the last six months or so. Mostly videogames (surprise, surprise). Many of the big ones were hard to avoid, of course: Double Fine Adventure, Wasteland 2, The Banner Saga, Shadowrun Returns, Project Eternity…

After all those heavy-hitters and the massive campaigns that they ran, you might be experiencing some Kickstarter fatigue. I sort of am. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye out for the smaller gems that often fly under the radar, especially now that the site is the Next Cool Thing and every indie dev and their mother is flocking there.

Radio the Universe is one of those gems, a top-down action adventure game sticky with charm and atmosphere.

I looks sort of like The Legend of Zelda meets the post-apocalypse, with a little Cave Story thrown in. The developer also says it’s inspired by Symphony of the Night. And the bit in the trailer with the eyes following the player character reminds me of Serial Experiments Lain, too, actually. So you can say it draws from a lot of different places (and all those places are pretty awesome), but it’s very clearly its own thing.

Stylistically, it’s right up my alley. The world looks so decrepit and mechanical and strange. The music is brilliantly bleak and discordant. I absolutely adore the hand-drawn, pixelated cutscenes and their stingy use of colors and shading. It’s the kind of world I will feel blissfully uncomfortable living in and never want to leave.

This is a totally meaningless statement, I know, but this game just has it. I don’t know what it is, but I can tell when game has it, even from just a gameplay video. This one does. For me, anyway. I can see Radio the Universe being one of those truly special games — the kind that worms its way into your heart and won’t ever leave.

Check out the video and decide for yourself.

I was looking for a good turn-based SRPG to play for a while, got plenty already (was even tempted to get the new XCOM at one point). The beta is just multiplayer and the full game will include a story and dialogue driven single player. From the multiplayer, the game plays a lot like FFT with several changes. the game is absolutely amazing so far, was wondering if any of you interested for multiplayer down the line.

Very beautiful vikings… (image source: Stoic Studios video screenshot via Youtube)

So, you like a bit of good old fashioned blood lust and snow do ya?  The Banner Saga may be the game for you then, if you like to use your brain, which usually vikings do not!  The banner Saga is being developed by Stoic, which is made up of three ex-Bioware staff who worked together on Star Wars: The Old Republic for fice years.

Nathan Grayson over at RPS has had some hands on time with The Banner Saga, and it sounds very promising if you like some depth.

Read about Nathan’s impressions @ RPS

Video @ Youtube

Were you a backer of The Banner Saga? Well here is a rather recent update from the ex-Bioware staff. The video below details where a huge chunk of the Kickstarter funds have gone to. Those are a lot of boxes being stored in their own house and they also have not taken any personal salaries out of the Kickstarter fund either. Instead they are waiting until the game makes money once they launch it. What dedication.

I’d like to relax a bit and plan things out and get going full speed ahead with the blog again, but I think I’ll have to build up before I hit my stride ala three posts a month.  Not only did I lose touch with the blog, I lost touch with the rest of the gaming world, not to mention my musical endeavours.  In fact, it was actually quite a miracle that I was able to focus on and get out the Journey review on time.

That being said, I’m playing catch-up.  I have one of those reading list aps on my browser, so I’ve been going through the links I’ve accrued… lots of the stuff is actually from January, heh.  Here’s what I’ve been checking out:

- Video interview with the Earthbound Papas – Covers some interesting stuff that I hadn’t heard during their MAGFest panel.

- Interview with Miki Higashino – Turns out, my ignorance of music by composers such as Miki Higashino is one of the reasons I started this blog!  I had no idea of who she was until I read this interview, and now I’m excited to check out a lot of her stuff.  Looks like I’ll be looking into Gradius and Suikoden I and II, as well as her collaboration with Yasunori Mitsuda, Moonlit Shadow, among other things.

*Side note: It’s funny… I don’t remember where I read this, but some guy was talking about how hearing “Gregorian chants” in the Halo opening allowed him really to see the potential and future of VGM.  The funny thing is, the first track I listened to of the Suikoden II soundtrack was of that nature, and that game came out about three years prior to Halo.  I talked about how that chanting was, to me, nothing to gawk at in part one of my review for the Halo OST, and I must say that this makes me roll my eyes even more at its extreme popularity.  Sorry for being such a rough critic of it, O’Donnell/Salvatori and fans, but..!

- Austin Wintory is composing music for The Banner Saga, a Kickstarter-funded project that I’m pretty excited to back.  Speaking of, Wintory is on the board of directors for a non-profit called Education Through Music – Los Angeles.  Seems like a great program to which to donate—check it out.

- This isn’t VGM, but Bear McCreary, composer of the music for Battlestar Galactica, breaks down the opening music for season two of The Walking Dead.  I realize that I don’t pay attention to music on the television as much as I should; I’ll make that a goal for the rest of the year and beyond.

- Yasunori Mitsuda has composed for the free-to-play MMORPG Lime Odyssey.  His work is very familiar; lovers of the 16-bit era will certainly enjoy the three tracks on display at GamesRadar.  If I had the time to play an MMO, I would probably give this one a shot just to listen to the other tracks in the game.

-  The Two Guys from Andromeda have started a Kickstarter in order to get their new adventure game, SpaceVenture, off the ground.  Many people will read that and simply ask “who?” followed by an article and an obscenity, but those who get an itch of familiarity with the name will soon remember that they are the creators of the Space Quest series.  Oh yeah, baby.  The composer of the music has yet to be officially named, but some of the voice actors include the talents behind Yakko Warner (Rob Paulsen), Space Ghost (Gary Owens), Jim Raynor (Robert Clotworthy), and GLaDOS (Ellen McLain).

I’d like to explore Miki Higashino’s work more in the future and also go back and see what I’ve missed by Mitsuda; however, I also have to get back up to speed on projects current, including my own.  In the next couple of weeks, expect at least an updated draft of “Gumshoes” to listen to, but I’m looking to give you something that’s aimed more towards reading as well.

‘til soon…!

This was a neat thing, but for the most part it remained more or less off the radar for video game crowds. Generally speaking gamers mostly ignored the site, and projects struggled to get off the ground. Then something unexpected happened; Tim Schafer showed up.

Don't mind me, just revolutionizing stuff.

For those of you who don’t keep up with gaming news Tim Schafer is kinda the Radiohead or David Lynch of the video game world. He’s made a lot of crazy creative games that are well received critically, but usually have a mild financial success. Over his career he’s made games about a tentacle that wants to take over the world, a wannabe pirate who fights with insults instead of swords, a travel agent for the dead, a circus boy who runs away from the circus to join a psychic summer camp and battles a brain-stealing dentist, and Jack Black as Jack Black in the Jack Black Experience.

He decided to try to fund his latest game (Double Fine Adventure) on Kickstarter. He hoped to get $400,000. He got that… plus $3,000,000 and change. The game raised over a million in the first day alone. It’s mind-boggling how quickly this not only hit its goal, but changed how video games are funded.

Literally overnight a new funding option has appeared for games. Until recently if a game wanted to be made it either had to be paid for out of pocked, which most people can’t afford to do, go through a publisher, which means the developers have to bend to the will of the publisher and sign over the creative rights, or go through investors, who are notoriously skittish and are less focusing on making good games and more on making good companies. But now we have another option. Now we, the consumers have a say on what gets made.

Kickstarter allows developers to go straight to the people and ask for money to make a good game. Not to make a marketable game, or a profitable game, just a good one. Suddenly niche markets are viable. Things that have been shoved into the margins for years and considered dead suddenly have a way to get funded. Niche fantasy like The Banner Saga, tactical space sims like FTL, a steampunk airship MMO like Guns of Icarus, a game where you control an octopus in a business suit. Things that a publisher would be mad to greenlight suddenly have money to be made.

This is clearly a wise investment

Now making games no longer needs to be about selling copies, or building a companies reputation. This is big. Now there’s a good chance what we’re seeing now is a bubble, and it’s going to burst, and when it does it’s going to hurt. But so long as even half these games pan out niche developers will have a outlet, and we’ll see in move crazy stuff, even if it’s not from Japan.

It’s just been two weeks since I actually started this blog and I’m up to 80 hits already. Thanks to those that check back occasionally. As I continue writing and reporting on my sports teams and video game news I find intriguing, I try to find games that may not be getting the worthwhile attention they deserve and games I think are enjoyable.

I just recently bought my iPad 3 online. It’s a surprise if you know me, because I actually truly hate Apple. Each Apple product I have ever bought has always had a problem one way or another. Between an iPod (4th, 5th, and 6th editions) and a Macbook Pro 4, I have become fed up with Apple and the amount of lemons I have bought from them. However regardless of my feelings for them at the moment, I have opted to try the Apple iPad 3 in hopes that this time maybe it’ll be different. Since purchasing my iPad 3 and as I await for its arrival, I am constantly searching for games exclusively (unfortunately since I’m a PC gamer) for iOS. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Recollections and Cipher Prime’s Pulse are a couple games I’m excited about trying (though I have enjoyed AC Recollections on my friend’s iPhone) on my new iPad 3. Through my extreme Kickstarter exploration the past few weeks, after finding pages for Auditorium 2: Duet and The Banner Saga, I am very pleased to find a new little obsession in the form of an iOS touchscreen-based game by Camouflaj and Logan called République.

First a bit about the developers. Camouflaj is a group of innovative developers, veteran developers at that, who have worked on projects like Halo, Infamous, F.E.A.R. and Metal Gear Solid. Camouflaj is based in Seattle, Washington. Logan is a small independent production house that is headed by Alexei Tylevich. The company is best known for its Apple iPod ads and television spot for Skyrim.

Onto the game: République highlights a young woman named Hope, who is stuck in a totalitarian state. The trailer details the protagonist contacting you using a stolen phone. She asks for your help against the totalitarian state that has taken her captive.

Camouflaj and Logan’s ideas for this game wish to change the way people view their phones and provide another depth into the gaming world. Not only do they want to push the graphics on mobile devices to the best of their ability, they wish to develop a game that focuses on a thrilling game that does not center around killing your opponents. Instead you’re thrown into a highly scrutinized world with a female lead that for once is not sexualized in order to grab your attention of the game. No, this game is much more than those mainstream attention-claiming tactics. République takes elements from the dystopian novel by George Orwell, 1984. Each scene you hold Hope’s life in your hands, trying to help her escape by perhaps turning off lights or summoning an elevator with a tap of your finger.

The main goals for the project are:

• 4-6 hour campaign
• “Stealth Survival” hybrid genre
• Metroidvania exploration & 3D map mode
• Branching, gripping, pull-no-punches story
• Full voiceovers
• Real-time cinematics

However, with 100% or more funding from Kickstarter, the prospect of building a bigger game with even expanded features would come to fruition. I actually found this project a few weeks ago, before I even thought to buy the iPad 3. Even with it being only for iOS, as an Android and Windows user, I thoroughly would and have supported this project so it could come become another reality gamers can deeply immerse themselves in. With just the few screenshots and the trailer, I’m already hooked and enthusiastic with the implementation of such innovative ideas to mobile devices even if it may not port to Android.

Please check out their Kickstarter page. The rewards are also pretty amazing. Below you’ll find some screenshots of the collector’s edition which completely reeled me in (I have soft spot of leather bound journals very similar to the one shown in the images – I got to write my creative thoughts somewhere). Besides who doesn’t love the idea of a book hollowed out in order to hold valuables. But seriously, this game looks and sounds like a hidden gem. If this interests you (fund or no fund), please tweet, link, anything to give the company and its game some advertisement. They have at least a solid 1760 backers already from Kickstarter, but only $71,594 out of their $500,000 fund goal with only 24 days left.

According to Ryan Payton, “We estimate that République will cost north of $1 million to complete. After months of meetings and due diligence, we believe that we can raise the necessary additional funds to complete République from potential outside investors, but there is some risk that our efforts will be unsuccessful. Before we enter into any financial agreements, we want to prove through Kickstarter that there is a market for a serious AAA mobile game. While we may eventually have to share future profits from the game in order to finance development costs, we have no intention of sacrificing quality, creative control or IP ownership.

In the very happy event that we exceed our $500,000 Kickstarter goal, this will grant us more financial freedom and will allow us to build an even better game. We will also consider the idea of developing République for other platforms, however this is not a decision we take lightly, as we firmly believe in developing our games to the strengths of each platform.”

I have retained very little about my knowledge of vikings. In fact, I only remember Leif Erickson and his father Erik the Red from elementary school days. Besides that, my most recent memory of vikings is from sadly One Tree Hill‘s series finale last week on Wednesday, April 4th. The finale did the series justice by incorporating many old familiar elements from the earliest seasons, including the “Burning Boat Festival”. The idea of the Burning Boat Festival was to set alight a viking boat filled with peoples’ memories as a way to start anew. Centuries ago, vikings would participate in ship burials that placed the deceased in a boat, along with all their earthly possessions and offerings, and set it afire for the sea engulf the remains. With that being said I have no clue if that one idea I have about vikings is placed in the Stoic Studio‘s turn-based strategy game about vikings.

Alex Thomas, Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson teamed up to create their adventure mini-series game called The Banner Saga after spending half a decade working on Star Wars: The Old Republic. Quite frankly this game looks wicked good, so great in fact that it has surpassed its Kickstarter goal for $100,000 five times! Apparently, people really want a turn-based strategy game with role-playing elements about vikings. It seems Kickstarter has been robbing me of my money with all these fantastic indie games (Auditorium 2: Duet and Double Fine Adventure to name a couple) looking to develop into something truly wonderful. The game will provide beautiful cinematics and stunning landscapes viewable DRM-free on PC and Mac. Also if you haven’t heard much about The Banner Saga, then maybe you have heard of the game Journey perhaps? Notable composer Austin Wintory of the PSN game, Journey, is going to create the music for The Banner Saga due to the extra money the Kickstarter fund raised.  If you are unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it’s a wonderful website that allows people to set up “backer rewards” in order to establish funds for their project. These rewards are available when you donate a certain amount of money such as if you donate $25 you’ll receive an rewards mentioned for $25 and below plus specific items (such as soundtracks, wallpapers, etc) that is entitled when you give $25. It could be sold out because of the limits of it, but if you donate a huge chunk of money to a project you’ll receive pretty amazing rewards, such as donating $5000 or more to The Banner Saga will let you get animate into Stoic Studio’s game (pretty awesome right? – but sorry it’s sold out already). Anyway, check out the trailer below, if the above ramblings haven’t already peaked your interest in this gorgeously designed game.

The Banner Saga Announcement Trailer

Campaign: Pinkerton Road Studios
Current status: $63,367 pledged of $300,000 goal
Jane Jensen, creator of the acclaimed Gabriel Knight adventure series, wants her idyllic farmstead in Lancaster County, Penn., turned into “a remote outpost of gamedom.” Along with husband and game producer Robert Holmes, Jensen hopes for a successful shakedown run of “Community Supported Gaming” – a term (coined by Jensen) aptly summarizing the Kickstarter craze – before embarking on three potential full-length adventure titles. “The casual game market is ready for meatier fare, and the hardcore audience is nostalgic for games like these,” Jensen said in a recent press release.

Campaign: Make Leisure Suit Larry come again
Original game: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Current status: $191,900 pledged of $500,000 goal
The premise of the Leisure Suit Larry adventure series hangs in left field at first glance: Players control the balding, double entendre-speaking, 40-something Larry in his pursuit for (unsuccessfully) seducing attractive women.  Beyond the camp and alliterative affinity, however, lies a franchise adored by fans for its snappily coarse humor. Series creator Al Lowe  joined forces with current rights-holder Replay Games with plans to recreate the first seven games for mobile devices using updated graphics and a modern interface.

Campaign: Shadowrun Returns
Original game: Shadowrun
Current status: $504,331 pledged of $400,000 goal
As one of the most popular pen-and-paper role-playing games around, Shadowrun scores major geek cred for combining aspects of the cyberpunk, fantasy, and mystery genres. Only 28 hours transpired before the fundraiser hit its goal, and Shadowrun creator Jordan Weisman and mobile developer Harebrained Schemes (Crimson Steam Pirates) are forging ahead with a 2D turn-based title set in the Shadowrun universe.

“Crowdsourcing to fund creative content represents truly profound change to the status quo,” Harebrained’s Kickstarter entry reads. “While we watch financial models for the creation and distribution of creative content continue to erode, Kickstarter charts a direction for how fans can directly impact development of creative content they want by funding its creation.”

Campaign: The Banner Saga
Current status: $392,312 pledged of $100,000 goal
Composed by a trio of artists and designers whose latest accomplishment was the blockbuster massively multiplayer Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Banner Saga “throws you into the end of the world” and tests your mettle against gorgeously bearded men and lithe spearwives in a turn-based tactical RPG. Developer Stoic’s art direction strikes a richly colored motif inspired by Viking and medieval fantasy themes. Best of all? Both the PC and Mac versions of the game will release sans troublesome digital rights management systems.

Campaign: Takedown
Current status: $221,833 pledged of $200,000 goal
Sure, modern military shooters pepper the industry like spent bullet casings, but Takedown’s burgeoning presence promises something a little different. Hailed as a spiritual successor to staple tactical shooter franchises such as Rainbow Six and SWAT, Takedown emphasizes careful planning and execution versus run-and-gun. The game’s setting places a team of private military contractors – that’s “mercenaries” for the rest of us – under your control taking on hostage rescues, target eliminations, and stealthy search-and-destroy missions.

Campaign: Wasteland 2
Original game: Wasteland
Current status: $2 million pledged of $900,000 goal
Designer Brian Fargo’s track record reads like a sermon from the RPG gamer’s bible. His company, Interplay, gave gamers such revered series as The Bard’s Tale, Descent, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, and Wasteland. The latter – a post-nuclear-apocalypse survival title that served as the framework for Fallout – is receiving a well-deserved sequel after reaching its target funding amount in just two days. Now with inXile Entertainment (Hunted: The Demon’s Forge), Fargo promises a game “worthy to be a Wasteland sequel, as challenging and rewarding as the original, with all added capacity and dazzle of games today.”

Campaign: Double Fine Adventure
Current status: $3.3 million pledged of $400,000 goal
The one that started it all shattered previous Kickstarter milestones, narrowly missing becoming the first project in the website’s history to hit $1 million in pledges by just 24 hours (ElevationLab’s iPhone dock got there first). Still, reaching a staggering 834 percent donation rate probably caused at least a few gleeful grins at the end-of-week meeting. What’s next for Double Fine? After prophesying that lightning certainly strikes twice — or thrice, or even seven times — Schafer and pals will spend the next six to eight months fashioning a new point-and-click adventure game for mobile devices, PC, and Mac.

What do you think of the surging popularity of crowdfunded games and the meteoric rise of Kickstarter as a bastion of retro revivals? Leave your comments below.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat’s fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry’s latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

The Banner Saga is an indie game being developed by Stoic Studio and they’re currently drawing funding from a Kickstarter campaign. It’s a narrative focused turn based strategy game set in a post apocalyptic world. But this isn’t a Fallout Tactics knock off, The Banner Saga is a tale set in the world of Norse mythology where the gods have all died. The unique thing about the game is that it’s not about defeating a bad guy or saving the world. Instead it takes place after the end of the world and it challenges players to deal with the problems that presents.

The game is being made by, among other people, the previous art director for Sleeping Beauty and it really shows. The game’s hand drawn animations lend a really cool feel to what little of the game we’ve seen so far and I really love the idea of having to survive in a world that has literally died. Stoic boasts that the choices you make during the game will have a huge effect on the game’s outcome. They’re also saying that that story itself is going to be mature and will feature real relationships that players will become emotionally connected to and make you want to fight for.

They’ve also stated that the game will make the player take real risks where the choices you make will more then likely lead to the permanent death of some of your companions. Companions that, in the past, you’ve fought to save and protect. It’s this kind of gameplay that will lend a real sense of risk to the game and make players think twice or three times about the decisions they’re about to make. It reminds me a lot of the old Fire Emblem games and how in those games you needed to be very careful about the risks you were taking lest anyone in your party die and stay dead for the rest of the quest.

This seems to be the column the player is trying to protect.

Perhaps this goes without saying but I really support this kind of game development and I want to see a lot more of it in the indie community. That’s why I wanted to lend whatever exposure my site can generate towards this project. I’d encourage everyone to buy into the Kickstarter project but it won’t really be necessary. Stoic received over 250% of their goal in under a week and at the time of writing this they’ve got over $350,100.

Still I suggest everyone to check out what they offer for pledge rewards and give them some more money because the more they get, ultimately, the better game they’ll make. Or that extra money will fund whatever their next project is. Check it out and please be generous, this kind of game development should be supported.