Good evening. You are listening to Three Moves Ahead, and I'm your host, Rob Zakeney.

Joining me today once again is Thruis Head founder and my co-panelist, Troy Goodfellow. Troy, welcome to the show. It is great to be here on a cold Monday night. And we also welcome back after far too long in absence, our friend and Polygon reviewer, Danielle Rien-Dow. Danielle, welcome back. Thank you so much. I'm very, very glad to be here. And I, you know, I'm sorry to make you jealous, Troy, but it's actually really beautiful here in San Francisco right now. Sunny and warm. It's real nice. Yeah, I'll be in Miami tomorrow. Okay. Yeah. Well, we can always compare what our rent is, and then I think we'll probably feel better than Danielle once again.

Absolutely.

I think that's valid.

So today we're here to talk about a tactical RPG banner saga, which Danielle reviewed for Polygon.

It's a kickstarted project that attracted quite a bit of interest in particular due to its unique and classic Disney-inspired art style.

The Banner Saga covers the journey of a couple disparate groups facing an invasion from sort of drow-like creatures in a

Norse-inspired fantasy world. And what's been really interesting is while the game has been

quite well received, it also seems to really divide opinions quite strongly on a few key issues.

And so I just, you know, to start us out, Danielle,

maybe you could talk us through a little bit how Banner Saga works and what your big pros and cons

were for the game. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, it's, it's basically a fairly, in my opinion,

tightly designed strategy game, not the deepest dive in the world, I think, it's basically a fairly, in my opinion, tightly designed strategy game.

Not the deepest dive in the world, I think, but satisfying enough for me.

A turn-based strategy game, you typically have six fighters on a field.

It's sort of a grid-based field, and each of your warriors has their period of attack and movement all in one turn, which is nice and interesting.

And there is an entire currency of sort of willpower that you get.

Basically, it's sort of tied into the rest of the game if you make good decisions.

If you do well in the rest of the game, you will have more willpower in battle.

And these are used for special moves for each of your fighters.

And the other sort of main draw to it is that you can attack an enemy's shield or their direct health.

And it's sort of depending on who you're fighting, it matters more whether you attack their

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