#THE BANNER SAGA DEVELOPER FULL#

Ideas and story flow could be challenged by anyone, as could gameplay mechanics and presentation. We tracked our tasks and milestones carefully, and everyone did their best to maintain forward momentum and prevent blocking anybody else.Įveryone on the team contributed ideas and feedback throughout development. The four full-timers spent every day collaborating on Slack, with impromptu video chat meetings throughout the day, and a daily kickoff video meeting each morning at 9 a.m. Powerhouse Animation needs to get their workload in the pipeline early, because they could easily become a bottleneck otherwise.

Igor Artyomenko, a fantastic artist hailing from Kazakhstan, came in to help Arnie with the art load. Composer Austin Wintory is involved from day one in blocking out the story arc with us.

There were four of us working full time on the game, with important collaborations occurring at various times throughout. With such a small team, this is incredibly important. We brought Matthew Rhoades onto the team for technical design work and that E3 showing was our first fully fleshed out vertical slice of the game. We had some false starts, but a year later, with E3 2015 looming on the horizon, we started production in earnest. We brought Drew McGee on to write the next game, and he and Arnie Jorgensen began preproduction and planning. Then, a series of technical projects, including localization and porting, consumed most of John Watson's time for the next year. Alex Thomas, the writer of the first game, decided to set off on his own to work on his own project. The three of us variously rested, traveled and caught up on the parts of our lives that had been suppressed or neglected. However, we soon hit some challenges which slowed us down and distracted us for some time.Īfter what amounted to two years of brutal crunch to get the first game launched we took a much-needed break.

#THE BANNER SAGA DEVELOPER FULL#

The banner saga developer