General News - Colin McComb Interview

PCGamesN interviewed Colin McComb and talked about the differences between tabletop and CRPGs.

“You enter a 10×10 room. There’s an orc here. It’s guarding a pie.” This scenario is how Colin McComb begins his answer to how writing for PC games differs from writing for tabletop. McComb is best known for his work on the Planescape setting for Dungeons & Dragons, which led to his position as creative lead on a number of critically acclaimed CRPGs, like Torment: Tides of Numenera – a science fantasy RPG set on Earth around a billion years into the future.

He continues. “What material is the room made of? What does the orc look like? What’s its armour set? What about its weapons? How does it react in these specific situations? What about the pie: what colour is it, how big, what flavour, is it hot or cold? What kind of furniture is in the room? What other exits? This isn’t even an exhaustive list of questions.”

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Serious question: was Torment: Tides of Numenera critically acclaimed, or did the devs just basically say it was critically acclaimed because of its association with the original?

Originally Posted by screeg
Serious question: was Torment: Tides of Numenera critically acclaimed, or did the devs just basically say it was critically acclaimed because of its association with the original?

Hard to tell as metacritic has it down as an overall score 81 from critics.

Link - https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/t…MCD-06-10aaa1f

#55 Best PC Game of 2017
#23 Most Discussed PC Game of 2017
#12 Most Shared PC Game of 2017

All that means jack shit as the game sold poorly.

It was a divisive game. Some people loved it. I, for instance, really liked it (though the original Planescape Torment is a better game). "Acclaimed" is kind of too much.

A lot of people gave it a 9/10 or better, going by Metacritic, including PCGamesN (the place writing the linked article). "Critically acclaimed" sounds like an exaggeration though, for whatever reason.

Colin's example of pie is interesting in that it reveals the thinking behind Tides of Numenera. All the writing has excessive details in it without considering whether or not the environmental art, sound etc could of conveyed it much better. Its the attempt to include enough details for a tabletop-like experience. A folly of a task as Colin points out because the potential details are endless but they attempted to do it anyways.

I enjoyed the game but felt it missed some necessary punch in its gameplay, in that it wasn't really connected with its narrative in any meaningful way(the tides, combat system etc etc). After all we play games and read books.

Originally Posted by Silver
Colin's example of pie is interesting in that it reveals the thinking behind Tides of Numenera. All the writing has excessive details in it without considering whether or not the environmental art, sound etc could of conveyed it much better. Its the attempt to include enough details for a tabletop-like experience. A folly of a task as Colin points out because the potential details are endless but they attempted to do it anyways.

I enjoyed the game but felt it missed some necessary punch in its gameplay, in that it wasn't really connected with its narrative in any meaningful way(the tides, combat system etc etc). After all we play games and read books.

I totally agree with you. I loved story and characters, but found the gameplay strange. I wonder if this is tied to the Numenera tabletop system, or just their implementation of it.

Originally Posted by Silver
Colin's example of pie is interesting in that it reveals the thinking behind Tides of Numenera. All the writing has excessive details in it without considering whether or not the environmental art, sound etc could of conveyed it much better. Its the attempt to include enough details for a tabletop-like experience. A folly of a task as Colin points out because the potential details are endless but they attempted to do it anyways.

I enjoyed the game but felt it missed some necessary punch in its gameplay, in that it wasn't really connected with its narrative in any meaningful way(the tides, combat system etc etc). After all we play games and read books.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
I totally agree with you. I loved story and characters, but found the gameplay strange. I wonder if this is tied to the Numenera tabletop system, or just their implementation of it.

This is true for any CRPG unless you want to lead them by the nose. The computer can't improvise and won't argue so you have to think for it and think about scenarios the players might want to do - then relate it to wherever the player is at in terms of gameplay and items for balance reasons.

All this tedious work is going to be missed by the player as they run through the room in 10 seconds after just killing the orc and eating the pie in one gulp for the 1 heal it gives you.

On the plus side, a video RPG can be more immersive. It can hide the mechanical side of the rules implementation, so the player can focus on interaction and the environment.

Originally Posted by rjshae
On the plus side, a video RPG can be more immersive. It can hide the mechanical side of the rules implementation, so the player can focus on interaction and the environment.

And the machine is cold. It will quickly enforce the rules and it will be done without argument, pressure, or bias.

Users scores while not outstanding are also not that poor.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Hard to tell as metacritic has it down as an overall score 81 from critics.

Link - https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/t…MCD-06-10aaa1f
All that means jack shit as the game sold poorly.