Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter launched

Hey, you! Do you want a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment? I am, of course, only asking for rhetorical effect: you do. You'll need to pay for it, though. inXile Entertainment today launched its crowdfunding campaign to make Torment: Tides of Numenera, a thematic and tonal follow-up set in the Numenera universe--itself a Kickstarter success. inXile needs $900,000 to make the RPG for PC, Mac and Linux, so get pledging.

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Hey, you! Do you want a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment? I am, of course, only asking for rhetorical effect: you do. You'll need to pay for it, though. inXile Entertainment today launched its crowdfunding campaign to make Torment: Tides of Numenera, a thematic and tonal follow-up set in the Numenera universe--itself a Kickstarter success. inXile needs $900,000 to make the RPG for PC, Mac and Linux, so get pledging.

It's not a sequel to Torment and won't feature any characters, but does aim to similarly deliver a deep story in a strange and wonderful setting, with "real consequences." Where PST asked "What can change the nature of a man?", Tides of Numenera ponders "What does one life matter?"

Pledging at least $25 (or $20 if you're early) to the Kickstarter campaign will get you a copy of the game when it's finished, which is estimated to be in December 2014.

As ever, rewards increase as you give more. Tiers of note include a boxed copy of the game at $65, beta testing access at $75, a fancy boxed copy with a cloth map and loads of extras for $95, designing an NPC for $1,000, and loads of fancy things if you have a squillion dollars.

Planescape: Torment lead designer Chris Avellone has heartily endorsed the project. Avellone calls inXile boss Brian Fargo "the reason that Planescape: Torment even exists in the first place," for backing it when he was head of publisher Interplay. He also called out Tides of Numenera writer Colin McComb, who was a designer on Planescape, saying "the game would've been of a much lower quality bar had he not been there and contributed."

inXile has also rounded up a load of other Planescape veterans, including Torment composer Mark Morgan, scripter and designer Adam Heine, and Numemenera creator Monte Cook, who worked on the original Planescape tabletop RPG setting.

This is inXile's second Kickstarter, following the wildly successful Wasteland 2. That campaign raked in $3.04 million to make a sequel to the classic RPG. It's looking pretty good. inXile says the Wasteland 2 team and Tides of Numenera are quite separate, so development of either won't impact the other.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 6, 2013 6:45 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter launched.

    Hey, you! Do you want a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment? I am, of course, only asking for rhetorical effect: you do. You'll need to pay for it, though. inXile Entertainment today launched its crowdfunding campaign to make Torment: Tides of Numenera, a thematic and tonal follow-up set in the Numenera universe--itself a Kickstarter success. inXile needs $900,000 to make the RPG for PC, Mac and Linux, so get pledging.

    • reply
      March 6, 2013 7:28 AM

      Morte + Hookers and Blow = Story Complete.

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      March 6, 2013 7:32 AM

      Come on all you front pagers, go to it! This is a good team who is already doing a great job on Wasteland 2 and they are the right guys to do this game. Give them your money!

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        March 6, 2013 7:50 AM

        I was hesitating on putting down money without seeing how Wasteland 2 turns out first but then I went ahead and said fuck it and put the money down. It's only $20-25 dollars for the base game so not like this is going to break the bank even at a loss.

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          March 6, 2013 8:11 AM

          I've been keeping an eye on Wasteland 2 as a backer and the recent video they released showed that they are doing a very, very good job so far. It looks awesome. They have the engine all tuned for this sort of game now so it should save them some time to move onto the next project.

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            March 6, 2013 8:14 AM

            I've fallen behind on backer updates so I will have to check this video out. I really hope things follow through with that game.

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              March 6, 2013 8:41 AM

              as a die hard Wasteland guy (I mean, i bought one of the prints of the box cover that is signed so I am a Wasteland nut), everything I have seen coming from the WL2 team is awesome. If you really want to see how much they are listening and sharing, get into the backers forums. I don't always agree with every decision they make, but it's all there for you to see. It is as transparent as you can make game design IMO. Something very wrong is going to have to happen between now and then for WL2 to totally suck.

              My biggest worry = they don't make August.

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                March 6, 2013 9:14 AM

                Did you notice in their last update they were saying things like "in 8 months" and "by the end of the year"... I have a feeling it's going to be more later than sooner. But I'm ok with that if that's what it takes to get it done right.

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                  March 6, 2013 9:50 AM

                  Yep. Which is not surprising. It's game development. As long as kicks ass I am all good with a delay. Just as long as they don't go into blizzard time :)

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                    March 6, 2013 11:52 PM

                    Was happy to see that $45 option for both Wasteland 2 and Numenera.

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      March 6, 2013 7:40 AM

      350K already, and it has't even been two hours. Think they can hit their 900K goal by tonight?

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      March 6, 2013 8:17 AM

      Backed, first kickstarter for me. But given my name and my obvious infatuation with all things Torment how could I not?

    • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      March 6, 2013 9:13 AM

      Just gave em $20. First thing I've ever backed on there.

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      March 6, 2013 10:23 AM

      OMG its 720k from 900k in 4 HOURS that is live
      {gWTF?}g Fully Funded in 6 hours ?

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      March 6, 2013 10:34 AM

      anyone agree that Kickstarter is pretty fucking amazing?

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        March 6, 2013 10:56 AM

        Depends on the nostalgia factor. I'm sure Petroglyph Games and Gas Powered Games aren't too thrilled with it.

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          March 6, 2013 11:00 AM

          I think it's not just nostalgia but ongoing trust in designers/companies. GPG hadn't exactly made games worth talking about in a long time. At least with Torment, it's a team that's already had great success with KS, is working on a greatly anticipated game, and has IMO, one of the better pitches (in that the story/character concepts sound really neat, and they've got designers with pedigree).

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            March 6, 2013 11:08 AM

            Yea
            And a crappy looking game or a crappy Pitch is not helping to save your company either :/

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          March 6, 2013 1:52 PM

          Not just nostalgia I'd say but sympathy. Do gamers want to prop up people making another FPS or RTS or prop up someone with a vision towards the kind of games that are neglected? I'd say the latter is the case for kickstarter. So if your game is still something that could be on the shelves in the traditional system, KS might not be the place to get funding at all.

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        March 6, 2013 12:45 PM

        It only seems to work if you got an IP with a lot of nostalgia. Which makes me sad. Because now Death inc. isn't happening: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/229423802/death-inc

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          March 6, 2013 1:18 PM

          I also think that Brian figured out how to PR the hell out of a kickstarter. I had not heard one thing about Death inc. I knew two weeks ago the Torment KS was starting today.

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      March 6, 2013 11:07 AM

      I love the way it sound. Smacks of Gene Wolfe and his saga so much!!

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      March 6, 2013 11:11 AM

      $814k already, lol

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      March 6, 2013 2:49 PM

      Looks fantastic, no surprise. I wasn't terribly thrilled with the Wasteland 2 footage, but I think part of that is just that turn based combat can be really tedious sometimes. Turn based absolutely has a place, and for big firefights with lots of enemies it's perfect. But going into turn based mode against every single little rat and rodent in the world is just irritating. I'm really glad that Torment is going to be all real time for this very reason.

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