Skulls of the Shogun Message Board

Jake Kazdal has had one hell of a career. He's been a Nintendo Gameplay Counselor. Made N64 games. Worked on both Rez and Space Channel 5. Made Skulls Of The Shogun. Edge has a great story on his journey from artist to developer that you really should read.Read more...

After spending most of the year as a Windows Phone 8 exclusive, the mobile version of 17-Bit's wonderful little turn-based strategy game finally makes the jump to iOS, and damn if it doesn't look gorgeous there. Read more...

Post-mortal strategy game Skulls of the Shogun is out now on the App Store, almost a year after it debuted on Windows Phone. Developer 17-Bit also released the game for Windows 8, Windows, Xbox 360, and later Steam, but today's arrival brings the game to iPhones and iPads for the first time, priced at $5.

17-Bit's Jake Kazdal told Pocket Gamer the iOS games is based on the Steam version the studio released in the summer. That means the tweaks and additions to that port are in the iOS version, including the extra episode and Tanuki monk unit.

As for multiplayer, the iOS port supports real-time "pass-and-play" on one device, as well as asynchronous turn-based battles online. Like other versions the multiplayer is cross-platform compatible, albeit only with Steam.

We were big fans of 17-Bit's take on a samurai's afterlife, awarding Skulls of the Shogun the full five stars in our review. As Jess put it, "Skulls of the Shogun is joyful, cheeky, and like most memorable experiences, it's best with friends."

Working in the fast-moving field of electronic gaming journalism can be dangerous. If I’m not watching the latest trailer for Gunface Organ-Splatter: Uncensored Edition, I’m likely to be quivering in a corner because the latest trailer for Gunface Organ-Splatter: Uncensored Edition contained one too many close-ups of quivering viscera. Such things are not ideal viewing through the hazy veil of an insomniac’s hangover. Today, I thought I was safe. Skulls of the Shogun’s launch(ed on an OS people want to use) trailer surely wouldn’t trouble my nerves? Click below for children eating skulls and losing all of their flesh.

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Skulls of the Shogun is Now Available on Steam!

Enter the Samurai Afterlife and join forces with vibrant ghost-samurai warriors, magical animal monks, and mustachioed samurai generals in a fast-paced, arcade-inspired blend of arcade action and turn-based strategy!

Rampage through 24 levels in an epic single-player campaign or battle up to 4 players at once on spectacular multiplayer maps, both locally and online!

The common, popular narrative is that companies like Microsoft are eeeeevil. All they want is money! Or something like that. Maybe it's not so clear-cut? This quote in the image above comes from a piece on Rock Paper, Shotgun on 17-BIT Studios, developers of Skulls of the Shogun. The article describes the trials and disappointments that came with developing a game exclusive to Microsoft products. Instead of having that exclusivity result in more exposure and sales, the move resulted in complications and an empty bank account. "They came across as though they were institutionally incompetent," 17-BIT explained. "I think they’re not really set up to be a decent publisher. I do feel slightly bad saying that, because there were people there who worked hard on our behalf, but at the same time there are systemic problems with the way that division is setup and run.” Of course, the developers knew they were taking a gamble that involved releasing a game on a bunch of new products—it's probably not fair to put all of the blame on Microsoft. Still, it's kind of impressive how incompetent Microsoft sounds, at least when it comes to doing well by indies. You can read specifics here; it's well worth a read. Granted, we've already gotten a taste of ineptitude outside of indie publishing—look at the whole Xbox One debacle. To quote our own Kirk Hamilton on it: The company seems to lack the sort of leadership that would've stopped this kind of cluster*crag* from transpiring in the first place. From the moment the Xbox One was announced, its messaging has been a mess of corporate-speak, contradictions and vaguely menacing obfuscations, wandering around aimlessly and pissing off everyone it stumbles into. Compared to Microsoft, Sony appears poised and ready, a company with seemingly strong leadership and a number of clearly defined goals. They've set out to win over developers and land exclusive games and content, they have a robust indie recruitment strategy, and they seem to take their customers very seriously. (Or, at the very least, they take courting their customers very seriously.) Microsoft, with their bumbling TV-TV-Sports-Call of Duty announcement event, weird pre-E3 info-dump and let's-not-mention-the-elephant-in-the-room E3 press conference seems to be more of a leaderless bureaucracy. So maybe "evil" is too strong a word? What do you think? The Sorry Saga Of Skulls Of The Shogun & Windows 8 [Rock Paper, Shotgun]

In 2008, Skulls of the Shogun collaborator Borut Pfeifer and developer 17-bit Studios cut a deal with Microsoft to launch their game simultaneously across XBLA, Surface tablets and Windows 8. Pfeifer had some reservations about working with Microsoft, but at the time, he thought getting onto a console could mean instant success. As the years dragged on, the bureaucracy of working with Microsoft complicated development and hit the team financially - Microsoft didn't pay them on time, and they had to take out a loan, Pfeifer told Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

"To be fair, we knew we were kind of making a deal with the devil," Pfeifer said. "Probably one of our biggest mistakes was thinking in 2008 terms, where it's like, 'If you want to be on console you've got to be a console first,' and that's just not true any more."

As a publisher, Preifer said that Microsoft Studios never tried to interfere with Skulls of the Shogun creatively, but that branch had deep-rooted problems.

"They came across as though they were institutionally incompetent," Pfeifer said. "I think they're not really set up to be a decent publisher. I do feel slightly bad saying that, because there were people there who worked hard on our behalf, but at the same time there are systemic problems with the way that division is set up and run."

Microsoft doesn't hate indie developers, Pfeifer said. "There are people there, like Chris Charla, the portfolio manager of XBLA - though that's probably changing, because XBLA is going away - who are great champions, but as a whole, it's not that Microsoft loves or even hates indies. It's just that they're an indifferent machine to it all."

An expanded edition of Skulls of the Shogun launches on Steam in July, and the beta is available now with pre-orders. On XBLA, we found Skulls of the Shogun to be an absolutely enjoyable experience - so much so that we gave it a perfect score.

After the Xbox One reveal, we asked a handful of independent developers what they thought Microsoft said to them with the presentation: "It was sort of weird," was the overall summary. Before even that, we asked a larger handful of indies what they thought of Microsoft in the current generation, and received a mixed response.

“When people call Microsoft ‘evil’, it’s kind of an undeserved compliment. To be evil, you have to have vision, you have to have communication, execution…”

Rewind three years, to the Eurogamer Expo, London, October 2010. The staff of Rock, Paper, Shotgun are discussing which game from the Indie Arcade we would decree to be our game of the show. Messhof’s sadly still-private swordfighting micro-epic Nidhogg ultimately took home the trophy, but we were a hair’s breadth from giving it to Skulls of the Shogun. This colourful and witty turn-based strategy game starred undead Samurai, and deftly condensed and remixed what can be a hoary old genre into something fresh, fast and thoughtful. When I played the game then, it seemed slick and surely not far from completion. I anticipated being able to play it just a few months later. I anticipated it finding itself a great many fans on PC. For many and complicated reasons, I was wrong.

It’s now June 2013, six months after Skulls’ Microsoft-exclusive release on Windows 8, Microsoft Surface and XBLA, and I’m talking to Borut Pfeifer of Plush Apocalypse, one of a small collective of developers who collaborated on the game. He was wrong too.(more…)

I’m going to have a full interview about the strange, sad tale of how/why excellent TBS Skulls of the Shogun so bewilderingly ended up as a Windows 8 exclusive, and how it all went so, so wrong, up on the site tomorrow. Meantime, let’s share the good news – this ace, very funny and tight undead Samurai battler is now free from its Microsoftian chains, and will arrive on Steam & Humble for any PC that can handle it next month. And thank God for that.

It’ll have brand new stuff on its old bones too.(more…)

Skulls of the Shogun, which we rather liked, now has a lower price on Xbox Live Arcade, Windows 8 and Surface. The Xbox Live Arcade version has dropped to $10, while the Windows 8 and Surface versions can be had for $7 apiece. The Windows Phone version, however, is still five bucks.

The savings should help pay for the inevitable dental work associated with eating skulls.

#review I want to tell you that Skulls of the Shogun is excellent. More »

When shoguns and knights collide, somebody's bound to lose an eye. At the VERY least.

Full disclosure: I've never died before. I have no idea what the afterlife looks like, where it's located, who runs its admissions process or if it even exists. I just don't. However, if an afterlife does exist, I'd be totally fine if it resembled the fantastical environment in Skulls of the Shogun.

The entire game takes place in a Japanese warrior's afterlife, with bright Asian line art, a cast of mystical characters and a betrayed general out for revenge. Somewhere along the development process, Skulls of the Shogun could have transformed into a gritty, deep commentary on the futility of life and honor, but thankfully its cheerful, Saturday-morning art style saves it from tumbling too far down that dark rabbit hole. In the end - and I do mean the end - Skulls of the Shogun is joyful, cheeky, and like most memorable experiences, it's best with friends.

So the next time you see your best buddy, clap a hand on his shoulder, look deep into his eyes and say, "We're going to the afterlife." And don't forget to smile.

Undead ancient Japanese warrior-themed. indie strategy game Skulls of the Shogun has been in development for four million years, and was finally released yesterday for PC, Xbox and Windows tellingbone. Well, only for Windows 8 PCs. Yeah, controversy/insanity. But what about the turn-based strategy at the heart of it? I’ve only gone and played it so I can tell you.(more…)

#skullsoftheshogun Children die. I promise that isn't as horrible as it sounds. More »

The real-time strategy genre goes to Charm School.

Skulls of the Shogun will launch at a special introductory price on January 30. Both the Windows 8 and Windows Surface versions will launch at a reduced $10 (normally $15), while the Windows Phone version will be available for $5, down from its normal $7.

The timing on the promotional launch place is vague at the moment - the press release past the break says the discounts will last for a "limited time." A day in dog years? Less than 12 parsecs? The length of the Japanese feudal period, roughly seven centuries?

(Don't worry, we'll let you know when it's over.)

Sometimes, I wonder what I’d be if all my superfluous life fluff were stripped away, and I was left with my barest essentials. Would I end up a lover? A fighter? A frozen, naked coward? It’s tough to say, but I quite like Skulls of the Shogun‘s (extremely literal) supposition. Stripped of my skin, muscles, eyeballs, and blood, I’d be a samurai. A skeleton samurai. Fighting for vengeance and honor, using all the tactical knowledge still bouncing around in my half-rotted undead brain. Happily, I’ll soon have the chance to live that flesh-free dream, seeing as Skulls of the Shogun’s coming out at the end of the month.

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#microsoftsurface If you've got a device with a MIcrosoft logo on it, you'll be able to play 17-Bit's action/strategy title, Skulls of the Shogun. The long-brewing game—playable on Xbox 360, PC, Surface and Windows Phone, complete with asynchronous turns—will be out at the end of the month. Come for the great music and fun character designs. Stay for the lightning-fast tactics battles. More »

It finally has a date for XBLA, Windows 8, Surface - and it's this month.

FINALLY.

Skulls of the Shogun is launching simultaneously on XBLA, Windows 8 on PC, Windows Surface and Windows Phone on January 30. With a launch platform lineup like that, we're not even going to complain that it didn't come out alongside Windows 8 as 17-Bit teased last year.

Skulls of the Shogun will run 1200 MS Points ($15) for XBLA, Windows 8 and Surface, and $7 for Windows Phone via the Windows Phone Marketplace. The game has up to four-player local or online multiplayer, and for the first time on Microsoft platforms, it supports asynchronous, cross-platform gameplay. What's more, it will be localized in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian. A little extra time goes a long way, apparently.

For a look at Skulls of the Shogun from the developer's point of view, check out its Joystiq Indie Pitch.

Here's your high-concept, catch-all elevator pitch for Skulls of the Shogun: samurai zombies meets turn-based strategy, and a dash of Words With Friends thrown in for flavor. 17-BIT's charming top-down strategy title captures the action-flavored flow of the Advance Wars series, though it ditches the grid-based world in favor of more natural radial movement. The whole package comes together around an ambitious multi-platform release that features asynchronous multiplayer match-ups and a meaty, multi-hour campaign.

Don't let the "multi-platform" thing fool you. Skulls is 100 percent a Microsoft exclusive. You'll simply be able to play it on anything that runs Windows or some approximation of it. Xbox Live Arcade, yes, but also Surface tablets, Windows Phone devices, and Windows 8 PCs via the new operating system's app store.

As you might have read in our earlier previews or our recent Joystiq Indie Pitch, the 10-15 hour campaign casts players in the role of a recently deceased samurai lord from feudal Japan. Horrified at being forced to wait in line for half a millennium before being admitted into the afterlife, our General Akamoto takes matters into his own hands. He enlists an army of zombie Ronin to fight by his side and sets out to carve his way into the great beyond.

#skullsoftheshogun The next big game from Microsoft will let you earn Achievement points on your phone. And your Xbox 360. And even your Microsoft Surface. And it's not a shooter. More »

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We like that. This week, Skulls of the Shogun lead designer Jake Kazdal discusses developing a game for four platforms at once, and what happened to that "launch alongside Windows 8" promise. What's your game called and what's it about?

Skulls of the Shogun is an arcade-strategy game coming to XBLA, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT (Surface) very soon. It's an original title, developed by a small team of highly experienced AAA developers over the past 3.5 years. It's a mash-up of tactical turn-based strategy, with a feel that is very arcade-like and action-packed. No grids, very few menus and quick, snappy rounds give it a very unique and charming aesthetic, easy for action gamers to adapt to, but with all the depth a good strategy game lover needs.

Why did you choose to go exclusively Microsoft? Is there any chance of Skulls of the Shogun launching through Steam or anywhere else?

Microsoft's XBLA group is full of old friends and co-workers from my past in this industry, they're close by so we can zip over there for lunch and meetings, and they have my favorite game console, along with a phone and a tablet and a new operating system.

For a micro-studio like us to be able to launch on four platforms simultaneously was a huge incentive. We own the IP and would like to do more with it in the future (not only gaming) but Microsoft is the publisher for these versions and that has kept our hands quite full for now.

Skulls of the Shogun is coming to just about everything Windows 8; Windows 8 PCs, Windows 8 phones, Windows 8 tablets. Oh, and Xbox. The turn-based strategy game supports cross-platform play across all those Windows, a nifty feature PAX Prime attendees can sample for themselves this weekend.

Skulls of the Shogun comes crashing through all those Windows on October 26.*

*when Windows 8 launches

Microsoft's Surface is launching on (or near) October 26, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing. "The next version of our operating system, Windows 8, will be generally available on October 26, 2012. At that time, we will begin selling the Surface, a series of Microsoft-designed and manufactured hardware devices," the report reads.

The Surface launches in two flavors: Surface for Windows RT and Surface for Windows 8 Pro, the latter carrying beefier specs (it's basically a full-on computer). It's unclear if both will launch simultaneously, and no pricing has been set on the two varieties of Surface. At least one game will be available at launch - Skulls of the Shogun - with others expected alongside it.

The Seattle Indies Expo is hosting a plethora of playable indie games at the Digipen Institute of Technology Redmond campus, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. this Sunday. Sunday Sunday Sunday, to be exact.

SIX will have Skulls of the Shogun, Mark of the Ninja, Perspective, Super Amazing Wagon Adventure, The Bridge and a slew of other under-the-radar games to play, as the Powerthirst announcer in the above video demonstrates. Admission to SIX is free, but getting your hands on some of these games before any of your friends is priceless.

Knock dudes off edges and hold up a strong defense to protect your general.

Skulls of the Shogun may have tickled your angry bone when 17-Bit announced that the turn-based battler will be a Windows 8 exclusive, but there are some benefits to that decision. Foremost, as the developer told us, it means getting to launch simultaneously on PC and Xbox. And now, another rather nice silver lining has made its way out from behind all the rage clouds: Skulls of the Shogun gets to be the first game with cross-platform multiplayer between PC, Xbox, phone, and tablet. I can’t think of anyone else who’s done that yet, so I suppose that makes this a pretty big deal, huh?

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