Tortured Hearts - Interview with the Team

All I needed really was to see a mockup/sample of how the game will look, that's pretty much 90% of what I base my decision on. I don't care about the story, or if it brings new things (in fact, I would probably prefer if it didn't bring new things, but brought back old things that game designers decided are not 'cool' anymore). I saw the video and liked the style so I'm going for it.
 
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Asdraguuhl

Thank you for your best wishes.

We can change a few things, but there's one thing we can't: we are not legends. It makes a huge difference and only trust can build a bridge between you and us.
 
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All I needed really was to see a mockup/sample of how the game will look, that's pretty much 90% of what I base my decision on. I don't care about the story, or if it brings new things (in fact, I would probably prefer if it didn't bring new things, but brought back old things that game designers decided are not 'cool' anymore). I saw the video and liked the style so I'm going for it.

Thank you very much.
 
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can change a few things, but there's one thing we can't: we are not legends. It makes a huge difference and only trust can build a bridge between you and us.

That is very true. Being Brain Fargo or Tim Schafer does indeed give you a head start. But this is also a reason why you should choose very well your strategy and I insist that you should put emphasis on stating why your game is unique and different.
 
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While I have no particular interest in Tortured Hearts; I've played the mods in NWN and they were okay but not worth money (in my opinion), I thought that the two dudes did as well as they could without the necessary talent to actually build a game. I just didn't see enough work (that could actually be used and not assets from other games), to prove to me that these guys have what it takes. I'd need something more solid than, "Look what I could do in NWN or NWN2's mod kits". The only other stuff I saw was conceptual.

I'd compare it to someone who painted a room in your house and decorated it, to ask you for money to build a whole house from scratch. Okay, show me your concrete, brick laying, drywall, etc, skills first.

My suggestion? Do something small with your team to prove your skills. Don't use anything that you don't own or can't buy to make it. A 5-10 hour proof of concept game. Even if you do that, I really can't see a $300,000 kickstarter, but who knows?
 
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crpgnut

A playable demo of that calibre would need 6+ months for a couple of people, full-time. Practically, we would need to create the game without massive content.
 
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Well, short of a miracle, I guess this won't get funded this round - I pledged for it anyway to show some support. I agree with the suggestions made above, though. The Kickstarter campaign could be much improved, and you should try to get the word about your game out in other ways as well. The kickstarter campaign was the first I ever heard of it, and the Watch is usually well informed.
Secondly, I wonder if you shouldn't scale the project back a little. A hundred hours seems an ambitious goal for such a project with a small team and limited funding - personally I'd be fine with a tighter, shorter game, specifically for a first commercial RPG project.

Good luck.
 
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GhanBuriGhan

This is a story-driven game. Every area and NPC has its own role. You can't remove anything without seriously damaging the structure. We could go for episodes, but it would be a let-down for the player.

Thanks for the pledge anyway.

Come guys, help us...
http://www.facebook.com/TorturedHeartsRPG
 
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My RPGCodex post:

If enough people heard about the game, funding wouldn't be a problem. (Big Numbers Rule)
A few thousand people can fund any game with a flick of the wrist.

In the meantime we have investigated a bit and realized, kickstarter most probably restrains the no name projects so that people concentrate on big ones (for their 5 percent cut).
In other words, if you look for an rpg KS project in google, the small ones (not just ours) won't ever appear! There was a list of small ones: all of them failed. "What a surprise."

Other pledgers have confirmed this too.

It is very possible that this is part of a bigger scheme that comes from the Big Companies...
 
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My RPGCodex post:

If enough people heard about the game, funding wouldn't be a problem. (Big Numbers Rule)
A few thousand people can fund any game with a flick of the wrist.

In the meantime we have investigated a bit and realized, kickstarter most probably restrains the no name projects so that people concentrate on big ones (for their 5 percent cut).
In other words, if you look for an rpg KS project in google, the small ones (not just ours) won't ever appear! There was a list of small ones: all of them failed. "What a surprise."

Other pledgers have confirmed this too.

It is very possible that this is part of a bigger scheme that comes from the Big Companies…

If you type Kickstarter RPG in Google then Tortured Hearts won't be on the first page but neither is Wasteland 2.

However, if you type Kickstarter RPG light-hearted then TH is the first link.

If you type Kickstarter RPG non-linear or Kickstarter RPG satirical then the 4th link sends you to the TH video.


In any case, don't blame this on external factors. The timing might be very unfortunate considering the presence of other higher profile RPGs that might overshadow TH but please don't make the mistake of finding excuses and putting blame on others. Otherwise you would most likely repeat the same errors in the next Kickstarter attempt should you be willing to try again in the near-future. And I do think that you deserve a second chance.
 
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Nobody would ever type that :) (or not too many people, mind you)

Kickstarter RPG won't return the name from KS (only from topics and it's still not too frequent)

Also, before you get it wrong, I'm not talking about our project only. Almost all of the small team RPGs on kickstarter are failing. This is the point.
 
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Nobody would ever type that :) (or not too many people, mind you)

Kickstarter RPG won't return the name from KS (only from topics and it's still not too frequent)

Also, before you get it wrong, I'm not talking about our project only. Almost all of the small team RPGs on kickstarter are failing. This is the point.

Umm, I'm a contributor but I just gotta say:

The fault, dear Brutus . . .
 
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Interesting development in the meantime:
If you google the keywords RPG and Kickstarter, suddenly our project is the 5th entry.
How strange... it wasn't there for almost 30 days.
 
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For those who are concerned...
This is the latest comment on the Kickstarter page:

"I love the art style in the video, and I hope you will make the game one way or another! I'll spread the word on Facebook. :)"
John Alvarado, Technical Director at InXile
 
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Based on some recent feedback I have to clarify an important thing:

Many people think that "having been written and scripted" means it's only on paper like a storyboard or something.

Nope. It's not the case.

It actually means that the entire story of the game has been programmed so that you can actually play it in the Aurora Toolset. This covers character training based on received XP, all the conversations, quest phases (journal entries), skill/attribute/item checks, rewards, finding and using plot items and many many other things that could be programmed. From the very beginning to the very end.
Converting this data to our actual game engine (Unity 3D) and setting it up for the real game is part of the development, but it's just a few months of work. The most time consuming and labor-intensive work is creating the models and animations.
I hope this helps.
 
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Okay, so if it's a functional game in the Aurora toolset already, why not just release it as a mod? Is that your plan if/when the kickstarter fails? I can certainly understand you wanting to make some money off your work.
 
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crpgnut

It's not a complete game experience, that's one of the reasons why we are not releasing it as a mod.
I can certainly understand you wanting to make some money off your work.
If it was a mod, nobody would buy it.

If KS fails, we are ready to make the real playable demo of the game, although it takes time and ofc money.

NWN has d&d combat, TH doesn't, that's why we completely ignored the combat aspect of the game, although most of the hostiles are created or for instance you can make someone angry. These NPCs have to be killed via DebugMode or using a cheat wand (quickest way). We focused all our efforts on creating the quests, writing the conversations, scripting whatever we could. The script commands will be replaced in Unity 3D but my own system uses a neat "interface" so that we could easily port it to any system (as xml's).
Let's take an example:
http://s1060.photobucket.com/albums/t451/ElidaVenn/

The NPC has these "interface" commands (2nd picture) stored on himself telling the program which commands to execute (give xp, add journal entry, create object, set variable etc). The numbers are channel numbers. If, say, a convo node uses Event_23, all commands with suffix 23 will be executed by the evaluator script. (1st picture). "Events" are the outputs, "Conditions" are the inputs, also channeled in the same way. So, if Condition_23 tests if you have an item, then Event_23 will take the item automatically (unless you tell him not to) and executes any other commands with suffix 23.
The greyed commands are the actual NWN script commands that have to be reimplemented in Unity 3D. However, I used only about 30-35 out of hundreds used by the Aurora Toolset to make our job easier.
If you have 500 NPCs and 100+ quests, you can have a picture how many of these lines are there...
 
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