Torment: Tides of Numenera - even more literary than Planescape

PC Invasion are drawing out their content by releasing teaser lines from an interview with InXile that they'll later publish in full. Weird, but I'm eager for even snippets of info about Tides of Numenera, so here they are.

Project lead Kevin Saunders says that:

In terms of the gameplay, we’ve probably gone for even more of a literary approach than <em style="font-size: 1em;">Planescape[/i].

Creative lead Colin McComb describes Numenera's design intentions:

We want our players to be active participants in this game, and thinking about it, and figuring out what it is that they’re pulling away from the game, and building in little verbal puzzles as well.

Not puzzles in the sense of “you need to solve this” but in the sense of “there’s a greater mystery behind this” that someone who’s playing casually might miss, but someone who’s playing carefully will say, “hey wow! I figured that out.”

The main difference is that Planescape is built more around belief, and wisdom, and the exploration for answers regarding the soul; whereas Numenera is more around exploring the world around us as it is.

We don’t want to solely do the dark, grim, crushing experience that a lot of Planescape was, but at the same time we also want to convey the sense of incredible age.

The rest of the interview will be online in a few days.


More information.

Word puzzles?
PLEASE NOOOOOO!
Consider that not all players are English scholars…

Case in point 1: remember an old adventure game called Callahan's Crosstime Saloon?
The game was good: great characters, excellenet graphics, cool premise - but the word puzzles killed it. Shame, because it was based on quality literary material (Spider Robinson's quirky books)

Case in point 2: Betrayal at Krondor and its Awful Chest Locks.
That game was hard then (pre-internet), and cakewalk now (post-internet).
So why implement a mechanic that's sole purpose is to frustrate players?

… and finally… an example of Getting Things Done Good:
Dark Heart of Uukrul and its Wonderful Crossword Puzzle:
This puzzle was an absolute blast to figure out - not the actual solution, mind you, but the grand idea! (Minor Spoiler: part of the dungeon was a huge crossword puzzle! When I realized this, I howled like a doped-up mad lycan)

Originally Posted by duerer
Word puzzles?
PLEASE NOOOOOO!
Consider that not all players are English scholars…

Actually yes please.
It's more challenging that way and you can learn something new.

Stuck for hours on one? Ask here. I will.

OFF

Originally Posted by joxer
Actually yes please.

Hey, how about an easy one?
This is from Callahan's and it made me quite a bit mad back in the day I played that game:

Broth + paddle + vagabond
And the answer is
Good luck!

Riiight, I'm at work, can't concentrate on riddles.
But…
Dunno what's or who's Callahan.
Without looking the spoiler, the first thing on those three words that appears in my mind is a ship cook. Next thing i suspect, is a fly (where spoon is a paddle).

However seeing the spoiler I'm now clueless. Dunno any name that contains cook or fly.

I do love huge and branching dialogue trees, but verbal puzzles seem like the easy way out to me. Not to mention they have no replay value at all.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
Not to mention they have no replay value at all.

It doesnt sound like a valid argument. Most puzzles and stories have no replay value (except some branching and different solutions).

It will be probably a minor thing so Im mildly positive.

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
Not to mention they have no replay value at all.

Originally Posted by Farflame
Most puzzles and stories have no replay value

Replay the game for its story? Very likely. Why? Because I want to experience it again.

Replay it for the world puzzle? Not so much. Why? Because it was a stupid hindrance in my epic quest.
… unless if the emphasis is not actually on the puzzle, but on the context (see: Uukrul's crossword dungeon)

A mildly offensive, NSFW example on this, penned by Herr Governator himself

http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ks…4vjio1_500.jpg

Originally Posted by Farflame
It doesnt sound like a valid argument. Most puzzles and stories have no replay value (except some branching and different solutions).

It will be probably a minor thing so Im mildly positive.

Branching dialogue does, word puzzles do not. IMO they're a cheap way to make a game appear focused on dialogue. A "real" dialogue "puzzle" means finding your way through a branching conversation to reach the outcome you want.

I was about to bitch about reading a book with even more text, but I happen to adore word puzzles