The Banner Saga Kickstarter Project Update #2, $143,000 and Counting
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I'll admit, we weren't prepared to post something this soon, and it's because of your unbelievable support. Once again, (and you'll probably hear this a lot more over the next 30 days), thank you and skol!
When we set out to make The Banner Saga we weren't sure what kind of response we would get. Would people dig the art style or slam us for not going 3D? Was turn-based strategy too small a niche to support us? Would the theme of the game click with people? Those are tough questions to answer when you're putting up your life savings.
Kickstarter has made it all possible, but more importantly than that it answered the question "do people actually want this?" more resolutely than we ever could imagine. We've had so many comments, questions and emails - overwhelmingly positive - that we've spent the last three days doing nothing but churning out answers and thank yous.
We've had one person tell us the project has spread across their art school like wildfire and they're hoping to raise enough for the rotoscoping prize so they can take the experience back with them to share. We've heard from a man who wanted to immortalize his father from Norwegian descent as a viking god. And we've had dozens and dozens of emails from people who had the same experience growing up as we did; playing the same games as us as kids so much that they got into the industry themselves.
I can't tell you how good that feels. We'll do everything we can to give back the love.
Because we've significantly exceeded our goal already, we wanted to give you a heads up on how we're already planning to use the funds and other plans for the future.
'¢ Just today we've already gotten back from talking with a local Austin 2D animation studio about getting additional and incredibly professional animations in the game, as well as higher quality cinematics that may remind you of Myth: The Fallen Lords, which will really help to make the game feel like a big, living world in a way we couldn't have before.
'¢ We're already in talks with a major sound studio who have worked on several games that we really respect. On our shoestring budget we were going to be snapping branches out back with a hand-held recorder but now we have the option to put incredible, professional sound into the game.
'¢ We'll be ramping up our programming support very soon to make sure we get back all the little features we thought we'd have to skip, as well as making the game as stable as possible and making our multiplayer release as robust as possible. Not to mention staying on schedule!
We've gotten a lot of questions about what we'll be doing with additional funding. It's extremely important to us to deliver on our promises and we're dedicated to using the funds to improve the game while balancing our deadlines.
Every additional dollar we get is going into upping the quality and making the game better. Kickstarter has opened a lot of doors to other passionate professionals who want to help us make something special, and your funding has given us the option of working with them.
We've also started a poll to see what other platforms people would most like to see supported. If you've already backed the project take a minute to weigh in on that as well.
We'll continue to give you updates on the our polls and collaborations with great developers as they happen, as well as additional platforms and languages we'll be making available.
Our sincerest thanks,
Alex, Arnie and John
