Torment: Tides of Numenera

Antar Bolaeisk · 20-02-2013 7:51pm #1

Single player, story-driven, isometric role-playing game. PC and Mac (and maybe Linux). DRM-free.

Torment: Tides of Numenera™ continues the thematic legacy of the critically acclaimed Planescape: Torment™. Set in Monte Cook's new tabletop role-playing world, Numenera™, the newest Torment asks: What does one life matter?

Numenera's Ninth World is a fantastic vision of a world in which massive civilizations have risen and fallen - disappeared, transcended, overwhelmed, or destroyed - and left their cities, monuments, and artifacts behind. As each rose and fell, their achievements became part of the accumulated detritus of eons... but much of it did not decay. And now this assortment of ancient power is there for the taking, ever-present, underfoot. The humans of the Ninth World take and use what they can. They call these wonders (and horrors) the numenera.

One of these humans discovers a way to use the numenera to grow strong, to cheat death, to skip across the face of centuries in a succession of bodies. But he discovers an unexpected side effect: You.

Torment™ is a game of complex and nuanced morality, deep and reactive choice and consequence, and immersion into a new and strange vision. You will chart a course through bizarre dimensions, across the face of a vastly different world. You will earn companions along the way, and discover their value - perhaps through their strengths, perhaps more literally by selling them. Throughout it all, you will choose a path that will lead inexorably to an ending that stems naturally from your actions, facing adversaries who harness powers beyond your comprehension, and who will ultimately force you to face yourself and answer the question: What does one life matter?

Homepage: https://torment.inxile-entertainment.com/
Numenera: http://www.numenera.com/

Woohoo!

Looks like it's going to be another Kickstarter as they have a link to pledge (though it's not ready yet).

Edit: Hah, a kickstarter for a game based on a kickstarted game!

quarryman · 20-02-2013 9:38pm

Zillah · 21-02-2013 1:37am

Antar Bolaeisk wrote: »

Edit: Hah, a kickstarter for a game based on a kickstarted game!

Meta.

You just reminded me that I backed this Kickstarter so I should get a copy of this game when it eventually comes out. Looks interesting!

EDIT: Wait, what? Now I'm confused. What did I back...
Ok, turns out I was thinking of this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity
Though I had heard about Numenera before, must have mixed them up in my head.

mewso · 21-02-2013 1:25pm

Zillah wrote: »

Meta.

You just reminded me that I backed this Kickstarter so I should get a copy of this game when it eventually comes out. Looks interesting!

EDIT: Wait, what? Now I'm confused. What did I back...
Ok, turns out I was thinking of this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity
Though I had heard about Numenera before, must have mixed them up in my head.

Well eternity has Chris Avellone the designer and co-writer of Planescape Torment if I'm not mistaken. Not sure if this sequel has any of the original writers so dangers abound of a sequel in name only.

*edit Colin McComb the other Torment writer is working on Wasteland 2 so presumably he'll be involved in this.

Antar Bolaeisk · 21-02-2013 7:13pm

mewso wrote: »

Well eternity has Chris Avellone the designer and co-writer of Planescape Torment if I'm not mistaken. Not sure if this sequel has any of the original writers so dangers abound of a sequel in name only.

*edit Colin McComb the other Torment writer is working on Wasteland 2 so presumably he'll be involved in this.

Yeah, after reading a bit more about it it's not quite as exciting as I had first thought. I have seen articles about Avellone expressing an interest in returning to Torment so hopefully they'll be able to get him on board. I think Fargo would have been with Interplay at the time but I'm not sure on his involvement with Planesape: Torment.

Sarky · 22-02-2013 12:54am

They have the original Planescape: Torment writer and concept artist on their team. That'll do for me.

Also being a computer game it'll have to contain some sort of balance so it doesn't fall prey to Monte Cook's supposed fetish for penalising the hell out of players for making characterful choices instead of number-crunching ones.

mewso · 06-03-2013 3:32pm

Kickstarted today and they already have my money.

Pushtrak · 06-03-2013 3:36pm

I was about to post this, as I just saw it on Eurogamer. Knew people here would be interested as I've seen it mentioned a couple of times (at least).

Sarky · 06-03-2013 4:16pm

Nearly $300K in one hour o.O God bless the interwebs!

Pushtrak · 06-03-2013 4:26pm

Yep, a third of the way there, with each contribution being around 54$ on average.

Sarky · 06-03-2013 4:28pm

I guess most of the people who loved Planescape are old enough to be rich and successful now :pac:

Dave_The_Sheep · 06-03-2013 5:18pm

Yeah, I went for the slightly cheaper option. Still, €450,000 in ... what, an hour and a half\two hours?

Icyseanfitz · 06-03-2013 5:24pm

Just as the gaming industry was really starting to wear me out with its ****e kickstarter saves the day, so many great games from it

Sarky · 06-03-2013 6:26pm

Holy crap, $600K now. 2/3 of the goal already. It's hard not to succumb to ringing up everyone I know who'd never heard of Planescape and screaming at them "YOU SEE!? I WASN'T MAD! IT WAS F*CKING BRILLIANT AND PEOPLE REMEMBER! WHO'S MAD NOW! BAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

Antar Bolaeisk · 06-03-2013 6:43pm

Holy Google! That's insane.

Antar Bolaeisk · 06-03-2013 9:16pm

Funded already! :eek:

At this rate they'll have reached their stretch goals before they can even post them.

Sarky · 06-03-2013 10:43pm

That's mental. Between this, Project Eternity and Dreamfall Chapters, 2014 is looking awfully good for games already.

Icyseanfitz · 06-03-2013 10:55pm

1 day and they have 1 million 100 thousand haha thats just class, nice to see that there is still a discerning group of gamers around

Antar Bolaeisk · 06-03-2013 11:19pm

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

1 day and they have 1 million 100 thousand haha thats just class, nice to see that there is still a discerning group of gamers around

They're not even half way through the first day yet, only eighish hours in.

Potential-Monke · 06-03-2013 11:41pm

So, describe Planescape Torment to me. Have heard of it, but never played it, and the only trailer i could find didn't instill me with much confidence (specifically that the combat looks like the FF series).

Sarky · 06-03-2013 11:53pm

You wake up in a morgue with no memory, a short list of instructions written to yourself tattooed on your back, and a talking skull willing to help you escape. The game is a quest to find out why you can't die, and why it's important that you fix it.

It has a well-realised world full of detail, and very unique. Well, multiple worlds, as you begin in Sigil, the city at the crossroads of all the Planes of Existence. You get to see the depths of Hell, some bizarre pocket dimensions, all with wonderful art direction and style.

-It has fascinating companions to add to your party, from Morte, the wise-arse talking skull who can insult people to death, to Fall-From-Grace, the succubus who turned to a life of purity. Each has some great backstory, great personality, and unique and fascinating outlooks on life.

-Seeing as you're immortal, a lot of the puzzles are cleverly designed to require you to die to pass them.

-The dialogue is extremely well-written. Conversations are at turns fascinating and hilarious, sometimes disturbing. You have a huge amount of options in your responses; where most games would give you "Yes/No", Planescape gave you "Yes/Yes(lying)/No/No(lying)". Combat was an upgraded version of Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale, with some lovely touches, especially powerful spells. But an awful lot of the combat could be avoided if you were clever enough.

-Character advancement was really well done. On top of the standard quest/xp/level up, you could regain memories of past lives in a load of places, which gave you stat increases, xp, new knowledge or a cool new ability.

-The story was epic, but it was still a very personal journey. The fate of the worlds was technically at stake, but only as a side note to your own quest.

-The soundtrack is heartbreakingly beautiful.

-The bad guy was voiced by the late great Tony Jay, who was just about the sexiest-sounding man on the planet. You may remember him as Anubis from Gargoyles, or Judge Claude Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Megabyte from Reboot, or even Galactus from the animated Fantastic Four. Or, most likely, the Elder God from the Legacy of Kain series.

So, does that sound interesting?

Icyseanfitz · 07-03-2013 1:18am

hopefully more devs will see that there is still a massive want for so called "niche" games and start making more of them due to this and its kickstarter ilk, i cant say how happy this kickstarter/project eternity etc. has made me, its has renewed a big chuck of my optimism for the medium

Sarky · 07-03-2013 5:16pm

Brian Fargo just said on Twitter that some rich loon has offered them 10 cents for every dollar pledged up to $3million. Potentially 300K from one person? Madness.

It's amazing watching the money roll in. big indicator of how much the old Torment game meant to people, despite its less than stellar commercial success.

sink · 07-03-2013 5:21pm

I pledged $45 which entitles me to this and Wasteland 2 which is looking awesome. Just finished Baldurs Gate Enhanced edition and i'm craving more CPRGy goodness.

Pushtrak · 08-03-2013 9:38pm

I just noticed earlier the stretch goals on the Kickstarter page. I don't know when the goals went up, as they are a ways down the page and it was only today I scrolled down by where they are and paid attention.
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Pushtrak · 09-03-2013 2:25pm

I thought I had posted an image with the stretch goals that had been done and the (at the time) one extra stretch goal to be reached. At the time, there was just the one stretch goal not reached, for 2.5 million. They've since added another for 3 million.

image-221565-full.jpg?1362812038

Pushtrak · 12-03-2013 1:48am

Update posted on the kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/424325

$43,000 or so till the next tier is unlocked at the time of my posting.

sink · 12-03-2013 6:34pm

It's officially reached 2.5 million, but the total has yet to be updated on the kickstarter page.

Sarky · 12-03-2013 6:35pm

They seemed to be having issues with Kickstarter updating half a million dollars ago. Repeat?

Pushtrak · 13-03-2013 8:10pm

New update and new stretch goal for $2.75 million.

image-223570-full.jpg?1363200679

Pushtrak · 20-03-2013 1:47am

The 2.75 million tier is unlocked. It's showing up as 2,745,667, but it's unlocked, so I guess the totals aren't showing up to the minute results. Anyway, 16 days to get that last tier.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

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