The Banner Saga - Budget-Price & The App Store
Polygon has another interesting article this week about the the mobile version of The Banner Saga, and how Stoic avoided the budget-price pitfall of the App Store.
My first time playing the iPad version of The Banner Saga, the strategy-RPG from Austin-based developer Stoic, did not last especially long.
I picked up an iPad Air loaded with an early version of the port before chatting with Arnie Jorgensen and John Watson, two of the studio's co-founders, about how the game was received after landing on Steam in January. After knocking out a few rounds of battle, and maneuvering around the interface for a few minutes, I handed the tablet back to Jorgensen.
"Everybody does this when we hand them the mobile version," Jorgensen said. "We break out the tablet, and after a few seconds, everyone just goes, ‘Yep, it's the game!'"
Adapting the PC version of The Banner Saga to iPad, Android and Windows tablets hasn't been as difficult a process as you might think. The team is "not re-engineering it for tablets" at all, Jorgensen explained — The Banner Saga was designed to work on mobile devices from the start.
"All of our user interfaces were designed from the ground-up to be simple enough to use with a finger," Watson said. "You could play the entire game on PC with your left mouse button."
Information about
Banner SagaSP/MP: Single + MP
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: Strategy-RPG
Platform: PC
Release: Released