For Thomas specifically, his self-professed area of expertise from his time at BioWare is branching stories. Given Thomas, Jorgensen and Watson's pedigree, there was no question that crafting a turn-based RPG was the correct way to go. He explained that prior to leaving BioWare, the Stoic trio had The Banner Saga's loose concept in place, and they felt so strongly about the idea, that it formed the basis of the whole company. We kind of fudged numbers around and everything came down to single digits in terms of winning or losing.” ”The biggest take-away from that is, we found that we had created a system where every single point in a stat, every single ability mattered phenomenally. You're starting to see little 'triple-a' indies popping up all over the place." That's actually becoming more and more common I think. We decided if we didn't do it now, we probably never would, so we had to go and start our own thing. ![]() I think for most game designers or developers everybody has that idea in their hip-pocket that they want to do some day, and it just happened the timing was right. "Largely it was because the three of us were working together at BioWare, we knew each other, we knew that he timing was just right for us to set out and do something on our own. "We had planned to start our own company before Kickstarter became a big thing," Thomas told me. At a time where titles like Fire Emblem: Awakening and XCOM: Enemy Unknown are turning heads, Stoic's release couldn't be more relevant. There's also morality, a multiplayer offering in the form of The Banner Saga: Factions, and a captivating art style reminiscent of Don Bluth's Secret of Nimh, or his own videogames Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. It's a turn-based RPG down to its bones, with many playable classes, comrades with complex back-stories, and the risk of perma-death that is guaranteed to make you very upset. We're now just weeks from the game's launch on PC and Mac. With The Banner Saga's base concept in mind, he and his fellow coders flew the coop and founded Stoic. He previously worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic for around five years at BioWare Austin, and during that time he started to get the indie itch. ![]() It proved instrumental in his burning desire for the genre, and convinced him to make a career out of stats, turns, perma-death and moral choices. ![]() I spoke with Thomas over Skype recently and he professed to have played just about every turn-based strategy RPG he could lay his hands on, and comes bearing a profound love for a little game called Final Fantasy Tactics. Based in Austin, Texas, developer Stoic only consists of three people, but there's one thing former BioWare colleagues Alex Thomas, Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson all have in common, and that's a deep, practical understanding of what makes role-playing strategy work. The Banner Saga was successfully funded on April 21, 2012, after 20,042 backers amassed a staggering $723,886 for the cause. We decided if we didn’t do it now, we probably never would.” ”I think for most game designers or developers everybody has that idea in their hip-pocket that they want to do some day, and it just happened the timing was right. VG247's Dave Cook talks with ex-BioWare developer Alex Thomas to discover why this could be the biggest release of his career. Tactical RPG The Banner Saga will launch on January 14, over a year after it was funded on Kickstarter.
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