Torment: Tides of Numenera - Update #11, Story & Graphics

With a week to go and close to $3.2 million the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter brings us another update. This time it is about Nathan Long telling a story through a video, the Five Fathoms Deep dungeon, Dust and Water concept by Andree Wallin, collaboration with Obsidian Entertainment and 2D pre-rendered graphics.

And about graphics:

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.

More information.

The semi-partnership with Obsidian sounds like a great idea. I hope it works out as expected.

Isometric has always been my fondest perspective, however, when I was playing Planescape, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to explore the world in fully 3D. Doesn't sound likely to happen here.

I think the decision to go 2D is a very good one. For someone like me who is "meh" about this game, my ears perked up reading this update, and I'm more interested now. Still not sold on it, but interested at least.

I thought isometric was already planned? Well Kickstarter confusion follows from Kickstarter fatigue.

Not sure what to make of the Castoff’s Labyrinth any more. More and more it just looks like a bunch of random concepts being strung together. But that Oasis of M’ra Jolios looks intriguing; it's almost old school sci-fi in appearance, like a city in Burrough's Barsoom.

It was always going to be isometric. What they're talking about is weather the environments are going to be prerendered 2d a la Infinity Engine games, old Commandos games etc. or fully 3D. While prerendered 2D has its advantages, it also has significant drawbacks as far as modding and changing stuff late in deveopment or post release are concerned. Personally i'm not convinced this is the way to go, especially when they're making a game that's going to be fully 3D with the same engine already.

Originally Posted by Santos
The semi-partnership with Obsidian sounds like a great idea. I hope it works out as expected.

This sounds like a great idea. I've always thought it odd that game development companies spend years developing tools and assets and then, for the most part, all that work has to be done again every time a new project is started. I notice that the latest Grand Theft Auto is rumoured to be costing close to $150m and no doubt most of that will be art assets (and voice over), so the ability to pool some of this stuff could go some way to narrowing the gap as to what it is possible to achieve with much smaller budgets.

Not sure about the 2D art - I do think that it may be hard to avoid ant like characters if you can't zoom the camera. And I tend to find it a bit constraining only being able to view scenes from a single perspective.

Originally Posted by rossrjensen
when I was playing Planescape, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to explore the world in fully 3D. Doesn't sound likely to happen here.

Couldn't agree more. There are probably countless practical benefits to isometric but none relevant to the essence of the game promised.

Can't believe I almost missed this due to glancing over the quoted part

Even by concept art standards this is jawdropping.