Torment: Tides of Numenera - Necropolis and Gamescom

Now that both Gamescom and PAX West are over, a new update for Torment: Tides of Numenera showed up, about those two shows, the Necropolis and a trailer introducing the world of Numenera.

A little while ago, George told you how we are incorporating backer NPCs into our game. I want to tell you how we're including the largest quantity of backer content: tombs and epitaphs.

First, let me take you back to our Kickstarter planning sessions. We knew from the start we wanted a reward where higher-tier backers could include their name in the game somewhere. In a game about legacy, set in a world built on the bones of forgotten civilizations, it made perfect sense for that reward to be a tomb. We designed a massive gravesite for these tombs, called the Valley of Dead Heroes. In this place would be hundreds of tombs, memorializing heroes of the past and naturally raising the question: "What does one life matter?"

Like our backer NPCs, we wanted the tomb content to feel like a natural part of the world. We also wanted to encourage players to actually read the tombs – not all of them, but some of them at least. And ideally different players would search through different ones. It was a challenge, but one we were confident we could make great… until the Kickstarter broke records, and we found ourselves with nearly four thousand tombs and epitaphs that needed to be in our game somewhere.

As we began designing areas, we did the math. We originally planned for two scenes that would contain most of the tombs: the Valley of Dead Heroes and "Valley Part Two" which would be placed in another zone of the game. But even if we made those scenes enormous, cramming in as many tombs as we could fit on-screen while still giving the player space to walk, it would only take care of half of the required number. We also considered sprinkling the other tombstones throughout the game, but that would still require far too many tombstones to be placed in every single scene in the game. So our algorithm master and all-around guru Joby Bednar had the very Numenera idea of a massive underground storage space, now used in the Ninth World as a burial ground.

The rooms in this space would be accessed by a control panel: the user enters a code and is taken to a room in which lie a subset of our tomb/epitaph markers. Mechanically, the room would be a single Unity scene, but with the props, lighting, effects, etc. swapped out based on the code the player enters. It would take a lot of custom scripting, but it gave us the flexibility to handle all the backers we needed to feature. It was the perfect solution, and with some design constraints outlined, thus was born the Necropolis…

More information.

For me it feels the game is already years in beta stage.
Hope it will be released soonish..

The amount of work to add silly backer epitaphs seems like a waste.

I really loathe backer content. Is this saying that it's all going to be locked away in a big room somewhere?

Originally Posted by Thrasher
The amount of work to add silly backer epitaphs seems like a waste.

Reading between the lines, I think they feel the same way and will not do something similar at the next Kickstarter. It's cumbersome to do right. The description of the system is pretty cool, but I'd be more impressed if they integrated it more deeply with the story.

Though encountering a hexagonal gravesite with the name *-==P3d0Bear==-* is just wrong.

Yeah, although I applaud their solution to the problem, next time severely limit the amount of backers with the option to get their name in game. Credits are fine.

Incline here we go!!

Originally Posted by Thrasher
The amount of work to add silly backer epitaphs seems like a waste.

Presumably the larger contribution makes up for that. Still, the whole idea seems a little pointless. I guess it's an ego boost.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
The amount of work to add silly backer epitaphs seems like a waste.

We know that ensuring a good experience for both new buyers and backers is very important. We understand there can sometimes be a conflict between backer content and the needs of the setting or story, but we think it is worth the effort to fit seamlessly into the game.

We've also explained before that often backers have good ideas that actually serve as inspiration for us - many of our quest NPCs in the game are from backers for instance. Our backers are often much happier with the outcome that way and it's better for the rest of our players, so it is a win-win to do that extra bit of work.

Originally Posted by sea
We've also explained before that often backers have good ideas that actually serve as inspiration for us - many of our quest NPCs in the game are from backers for instance. Our backers are often much happier with that outcome that way and it's better for the rest of our players, so it is a win-win to do that extra bit of work.

I think its great to have backers involved, in terms of proposing good ideas. But I think the idea of having god knows how many people name-checked in-game is not likely to be good for the overall experience. I think that's something that should be reconsidered for future projects.

Originally Posted by ikbenrichard
For me it feels the game is already years in beta stage.
Hope it will be released soonish..

To misquote the game… what does one year matter?

Perfect game for long, cold winter evenings. Hopefully it's released before the next summer comes…