Rejoice fans of old school RPGs for one of the greatest games of that particular genre, Planescape Torment is getting a sequel titled Torment: Tides of Numenera and through the crowd funded wonders of Kickstarter it has surpassed over 2 million dollars with over 38 000 backers helping to make the project come to fruition. Did I mention the original goal was 900 000? In addition, did I mention the game managed to get that much money in only 8 hours after its Kickstarter launched? It is well on its way too becoming the most successful project ever funded by Kickstarter and the best thing is there are no publishers involved, it’s just a dedicated team of industry veterans making the game they and the fans want, without having to compromise the creative team’s vision just to appeal to a wider audience.
Brian Fargo, the man behind the project is an experienced industry veteran with games such as Wasteland (the ancestor of Fallout), Bards Tale, Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, and Fallout 1&2 is a man who knows how to make some damn good RPGs. He is not the only Planescape Torment creator to be working on the sequel though, Fargo has assembled a team consisting of nearly all of the co-workers who helped him create the original, a game that was ground breaking for its fantastic storyline, tough moral choices and interesting fantasy universe. Some people have questioned just how does Fargo plan on making two games at once given the fact that his team, InXile is a mid sized developer and they are already working on another sequel to a beloved original/Kickstarter funded RPG, Wasteland 2.
Fargo defends his choice of starting the development of Numenera early by explaining that his developer is made of a team and a half. The main team are the ones actually building the game in full production mode while the half team is actually writers, artists and designers who focus primarily on spending anywhere between 6 months to a year on just designing how the world will look. They also focus on writing the story and generally just spending a lot of time fine tuning the games foundations so when the main team is done, they can immediately start making the game itself and finish it in a much shorter time span while still keeping the overall quality high.
Here’s a brief summary of the story:
You are the Last Castoff, the final link in the chain of the lives of the being they call the Changing God. He once was a man who discovered a way to use the relics of the ancients to cheat death and skip across the face of centuries in a succession of bodies. But he never knew that his bodies lived on as his consciousness fled, a new consciousness arising in each. Now he has awakened an age-old enemy, the Angel of Entropy, and his days of change are gone as the Angel hunts him and all his works. That includes… you.
With the ever-present threat of oblivion looming over you, you must find your sire before he—and you—are eradicated by the avenging Angel. You will find allies and enemies among the other castoffs. You might inhabit their minds for a time through the devices called “the Meres,” turning their lives to your advantage. You will travel across the face of the Ninth World, and above and below it, with your companions at your side—or alone, if you wish. Your quest will take you to alternate dimensions and distant worlds under strange suns; particular Meres might afford you even more bizarre experiences, such as folding time itself. And you will build your legacy as you find your answer to the question:
What does one life matter?
The developers promise to deliver a storyline that will deal with themes such as the value of life, abandonment and mystery while delivering an immersive and personal narrative with many NPCs who you can invite to join your party, all of which will have their own personalities and own back stories for you to discover as you keep playing, along with tough moral choices that will have profound consequences.
You can find a more in-depth look at the games and its features at the Kickstarter page right here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera?ref=live
If you want to have an idea of how the game will actually play and further down the line as it nears completion, you can check out a recent alpha gameplay video of Wasteland 2, courtesy of GamesHQMedia:
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