Torment: Tides of Numenera

Technically, what are your plans about the game engine ? Will you use an isometric 3D overall view like the first game or what looks like to be in Wasteland 2 ?

(Kevin)
Unity has worked out very well for us on Wasteland 2 and we will use it for Torment, leveraging both our experience and some of our work. We are still exploring our approach for the environments and view for Torment. Aaron Meyers, who was an artist on Planescape: Torment and many years of experience as an art lead is helping us to develop the look.

What are your plans for the game focus ? More open world ? More dialogues oriented ? Story driven like Planescape ? Linear or multiple way to complete the game ? Open-ended game world ? Can you elaborate a bit ?

(Kevin)
Torment will be a story-driven game like Planescape: Torment was. There will be multiple possible conclusions, optional areas and quests, and an emphasis on reactivity to player decisions, but it won’t be an open world.

Any words you like to add about Torment ?

(Brian)
Some have been curious about the title. The “Tides” are part of a choices and consequences system that Colin, Kevin, and particularly Adam Heine have been designing for Torment. Adam was a scripter on PS:T and we were fortunate to bring him aboard the team, too. Kevin has said this about the Tides: “They could be loosely compared to D&D’s alignments or Ultima IV’s principles and virtues. But unlike alignments, they are not in direct opposition to each other and unlike the virtues, you won’t necessarily want to achieve them all. Nor can you, really… you’ll have to decide what’s most important to you.

The Tides are more nuanced and complex, with the “best” choice for any situation being a personal decision for you (or how you want to play) rather than a decision that we as designers judge. Now, NPCs in the game will certainly judge you based upon their own beliefs and agendas, but we will strive for the game itself to be impartial. We want to provide satisfying reactivity and allow you to explore your own answers, for you to play as you wish and have the game’s story unfold accordingly. We’ll talk more about the Tides down the road and there are aspects of the system for which we’ll be seeking backer input.

The Tides are a good example of a way in which we are deviating from PS:T while being true to its legacy and also how we are injecting the Torment philosophy, as you mentioned, into the Numenera setting.

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Alex je napisao(la):

Ovo samo govori koliko su ljudi željni dobrog RPG naslova. A nije ga bilo ne pamtim.

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$1.5 Million: Richer Story - Writer Mur Lafferty and Designer Tony Evans join the Writing Team, plus a Bonus Novella

Upon reaching $1.5M, we will expand the richness and reactivity of the story through adding two new writers to our team. We have designed the game’s storyline to be highly scalable and modular, and this allows us to bring in additional writing talent to enhance Torment’s story through deeper content and new areas and characters – both optional ones and on the critical path.

At $1.5 Million, two excellent writers, Tony Evans and Mur Lafferty will be contributing to the game. In case you aren’t yet familiar with their past work, here’s a little information on each:

Tony has been a game writer and designer since the late 1990s and has worked on more role-playing games than any sane designer should, with time served at both Obsidian and Bioware. Tony worked on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Dragon Age 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Mask of the Betrayer (he designed the Skein and wrote One of Many, among other things). Tony was also the lead designer on Storm of Zehir.

Mur is an author from Durham, NC. She’s written for several role-playing games including Vampire, Mage, Exalted, and World of Warcraft the RPG. She started podcasting in 2004 with her show Geek Fu Action Grip, and in 2005 began producing the award-winning podcast I Should Be Writing. She's published several audiobooks via podcast, and her debut novel, The Shambling Guide to New York City, is coming out in May. She was a 2012 nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction or Fantasy.

Additionally, Torment (and Wasteland 2) writer Nathan Long will be writing a novella for Torment. Nathan’s novella will be included in the Novella Compilation, and all backers receiving that reward will automatically receive this fourth novella, too.

We haven’t talked much about Nathan in the past and it’s high time to correct that. Nathan has been a superstar on the Wasteland 2 team and we are honored to have him as part of our team. Nathan is a screen and prose writer, with two movies, one Saturday-morning adventure series, and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes to his name, as well as eleven fantasy novels and several award-winning short stories. He hails from Pennsylvania, where he grew up, went to school, and played in various punk and rock-a-billy bands, before following his dreams to Hollywood - where he now writes full time - and still occasionally plays in bands. His latest novel is Swords of Waar, the sequel to 2012's Jane Carver of Waar, and he realized his life-long dream when he began working as a game writer for inXile Entertainment.

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$2.0 Million: Monte Writes, Mark Composes, and Goo Oozes

We will continue to increase Torment’s story depth and reactivity as Monte Cook also joins our writing team, contributing directly to in-game content. Monte is focused on Numenera, but we’ve been working directly with him already, seeking his guidance on how to best explore Numenera’s Ninth World. Later in the project, we will also be collaborating with Monte on the adaptation of Numenera’s tabletop rules to best suit a computer role-playing game. But at this Stretch Goal, Monte will become even more involved in Torment team and will add his writing talents as well. (Fortunately, Torment’s schedule allows for his creative work to begin later so that it won’t interfere with Numenera.)

At this Stretch Goal, Mark Morgan will write more music for Torment to complement the additional game areas and content we will be adding. Furthermore, he will incorporate a live orchestra into his work. Of course, all of this new music will be automatically including in the soundtrack (digital or CD) for backers who are receiving that reward. We will also provide the soundtrack reward in the lossless FLAC format for those who desire it.

Our initial plans for Torment included four possible companions for the player and at this Stretch Goal, we will be adding a fifth, which we’ve nicknamed “The Toy.” (That’s not its in-game name. ) The Toy is a changing ball of goo: Is it a pet, an abandoned toy, a dangerous weapon? Whatever it is, it responds to the way you treat it by changing its appearance and abilities to reflect what it perceives as your desires. Its ultimate secrets are... well, you'll have to find out.

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Also, as a surprise addition to all (including our dear colleague Colin who is learning about this commitment right now as you are) after the Kickstarter ends, Colin’s going to be doing a play through of Planescape: Torment for you all, providing his developer commentary as he goes. Which areas and characters did he write? And what was he thinking when he wrote them? How fast of a reader is he? Does he have anything good to say about the combat? What is his answer to the question: “What can change the nature of a man?” Learn all of this and more!

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As we approach our $2.5M Stretch Goal, it’s time to explore what’s next. We're looking into how we might approach having some smaller, more frequent Stretch Goals, but in the meantime, we wanted to share our broader plans for if we reach $3M.

More Legacies, Deeper and Richer Reactivity

We’ve told you a little about the Tides and Legacies already – they are a key component of three of our four pillars, and at $3M we’ll be expanding their impact, especially with respect to our fourth pillar: “Reactivity, Choice, and Real Consequences.” In the upcoming days and weeks, we’ll be elaborating more on the design of the Tides and the Legacy System, but for now I’d like to explain a bit more about how these two concepts relate to each other.

Given that Legacy is the primary theme of Torment, you can imagine that its effects will run deep. Your Legacy depends upon which of the five Tides you favor – as demonstrated through your actions and decisions within the game. At our target funding, we envisioned six Legacies: one for each Tide, and then a sixth for those who have no dominant Tide. Your Legacy (and the Tides) has a variety of impacts on both gameplay and on interactions in dialogue. For example, certain items will provide different abilities depending upon your Legacy, and your Legacy also affects what focus you master. Your Legacy might draw others to you, or make them wary of you. As your actions affect the Tides, you can choose to adopt a new Legacy and embrace your decisions or you can resist their pull – for a while, at least. Some NPCs and creatures will notice and react to the Tidal impact on your Legacy, with some reacting favorably and others... not so much.

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I’ve advertised that we’d say more about graphics this week. The most popular Stretch Goal request from you, our backers, is for 2D pre-rendered graphics, which would mean that Torment would have a fixed, isometric camera with 2D backgrounds. A primary disadvantage is that this approach requires a longer, and therefore more expensive, pipeline for art assets, but its advantages are numerous:

- The same basic feel as classic RPGs (such as the Baldur’s Gate series and Planescape™: Torment) in terms of camera and environments
- Environments will have a more “painterly” look, allowing us to more closely represent our concept pieces
- By designing the art for a fixed camera view, every scene will look its best
- System requirements will be lower
- Because we are using a 3D engine, characters, effects, and some environmental props would still be modeled in 3D. This allows them to be changed dynamically during play (a 3D box could be opened, for example) and enables us to still adapt our Wasteland 2 pipeline and underlying systems (such as for character animation).

A famous recent example of this approach in practice is the screenshot released by Obsidian for Project Eternity last fall. We agree that it would be the best style to realize our vision for Torment and have been investigating its feasibility throughout this Kickstarter campaign.

We’ve been carefully evaluating the costs and trade-offs, and it looks like a 2D pre-rendered graphics approach may be possible. Being able to achieve this quality bar is only an option because of your great support – we are thrilled at the possibility that Torment could be as strong in its aesthetics as it will be in its storytelling and choices and consequences.

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