Torment: Tides of Numenera Catch-All

If I am reading the site correctly, with the additional PayPal money they have gotten Rothfuss!

And they are well within reach of Chris Avallone, given the time remaining. This is starting to look like "The last RPG you'll ever need" lol.

New fifth Fathom added thanks to more fans:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/wogDUpq.png)

And a possible new city, but probably won't make it in the game since it's a stretch goal and less than a week left...

A gigantic dome of water shimmers in the middle of a vast desert, seemingly impervious to the cruel rays of the sun’s heat. Curved obelisks from another age rise from the sands to cup and surround the bubble like gentle fingers.

This impossible oasis is home to numerous kinds of water-breathing abhumans. Some sport fins for legs like merpeople, some wear flippers for hands, while others appear almost human, being marked with only a dorsal fin from their head to their waist. No two are quite the same. Indeed, some are immigrants from far away, come to this aquatic utopia through strange pathways in reality.

But humans live here too, mostly for trade or work. They use various numenera to breath underwater – implantable gills, breathing apparatuses, portable air bubbles, and so forth. A town of air-breather buildings has grown up around the outside of the dome. These air-breathers are reliant on the dome, as most of their food (and all of their water) comes from within, but they make a good trade in the unique foods, animals, and textiles grown under the water. And of course visitors can find multiple shops in the air-breather town that will provide the varied numenera they need to enter the dome themselves.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Hb4kHTr.jpg)

I'm so in love with these pieces of concept art, I want to marry them (yes, all of them) and give them beautiful little pieces of concept art.

On a more serious note, I'm always amazed at the sheer amount of attention that it is given to those. The details, the precision, the giant amount of *stuff* that is put into them is just mind-boggling to me. Definitely sparks the imagination.

And yet Ebert insists games can't be art.

Last 4 days : (

Not familiar with kickstarters, but looks like it will barely reach the Chris Avellone level of 3.5million.
I keep hearing about how they all surge in the last day, who knows?

A piece of level pre-production art, apparently this doesn't count as "concept" anymore, it's what they expect the game to look like:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/y6svx0S.jpg)

they say it's going to be 2.5D, whatever that means:

The big debate: playing games in 2D vs. 3D – I know many of you are interested about our decisions regarding the art direction. There has been much talk about the costs associated with “2D development,” the quality and scope that can be produced by a small team, and the impact that this might have (for funding) of other departments. And trust you me, I understand from where these expectation emerge. But to be clear, what we are really talking about here is not a 2D game, but what you might call a 2.5D game, with just a portion of art production that is 2D in nature. Bear in mind, any extra time we spend noodling in 2D will be made up 10-fold when we get to our beta build and we are not ripping our eyes out trying to figure out how to get all that geometry to render efficiently on screen. Our early tests are showing very promising frame rates for our 2D assets, freeing up additional processing power for characters, FX, lighting, post-processes, etc.

After all, characters are not 2D, rather 3D seen through an isometric camera. And particles, well, they’ve actually always been 2D, but you know that. I’ll admit, lighting in 2.5D was a concern of mine early on, but after some initial experiments, I feel confident that 3D lighting can and will be used to considerable effect, grounding the characters in the scene through dynamic lighting and some shadow casting. These issues, among others, simply require a mind shift in the creation process, and it’s quite liberating.

In the end, it’s really not that great a departure from what we already know and produce. It’s just a different way of presenting to you the player, our “3D geometry,” in an old awesome way. With our new pipeline strategy, we’ll be able to include detail, complexity, and styles that I would typically shy away from given our team size. It’s a win-win from where we are standing.

It will easily hit 3,5. Maybe also 4 million.
This particular kickstarter has seemed very front-loaded though - probably because of the heavy PR they did before even starting it, so they might get a smaller end-surge than most.

Played through Planescape for the first time last week - better late than never I guess. Now I need this game.

By 2.5D he means, basically, that the game will be like Diablo or the old BioWare games--an isometric perspective with a 2D map but effects that make it look fully 3D. I think this saves a lot of development cost because painting 2D maps is a heck of a lot easier than putting together a full 3D level. It's definitely the right choice, and I imagine is what people want from this game anyway. Moving to a full 3D game would probably increase their cost by a factor of 10.

complexmath wrote:

By 2.5D he means, basically, that the game will be like Diablo or the old BioWare games--an isometric perspective with a 2D map but effects that make it look fully 3D. I think this saves a lot of development cost because painting 2D maps is a heck of a lot easier than putting together a full 3D level. It's definitely the right choice, and I imagine is what people want from this game anyway. Moving to a full 3D game would probably increase their cost by a factor of 10.

Plus, the backgrounds can literally be paintings. While this was also true of the old Infinity Engine games, memory and palette limitations restricted the effect. With modern tech, they can produce gorgeous content that looks better than typical 3D objects, because they only have to paint it from one angle. They can also, if they choose, still have the underlying geometry be fully 3D if they need that.

Call it nostalgia, but I definitely like what I'm seeing. The game doesn't have to be in 3D as far as I'm concerned, 2.5D is just fine by me!

Quick lighting test, showing off the 2.5d:

That looks outstanding. 2.5D seems perfect; you can build huge areas with a tiny fraction of the development budget, but having 3D characters in isometric view on top lets you animate your protagonist(s) and NPCs doing very complex things, from any desired angle.

A real 3D environment means that everything has to be individually modeled, textured, and positioned in 3D space. If anything in the environment can be moved, you've got a crapload of stuff your engine has to be able to handle. With this approach, you can build a whole area with only a little more effort than building one individual object; it's just one big texture and a movement map. But then the true 3D characters on top have all the visual features we've gotten used to.

edit: And, of course, then they can add 3D objects on top of the 2D background, to give you stuff to interact with and/or blow up.

Lighting plus an NPC or two!

The full update is here

Awww, doesn't look like we'll reach the "Player Stronghold", I always like those

Still, updated my pledge to 130. This game better be damn good

Just hoping we will reach 4.25m stretch goal. Might be difficult.

Longer game is always nice, though I assume that is an obvious "stretch goal" for every dollar they get pretty much. But the Codex sounds nice.

I'd probably kick in a little more, but I don't want to lose my existing restricted-access spot. I know I can raise my contribution without changing my reward choice, but I'm not that altruistic. (I'm already spending way more than I should for a game that hasn't even been started yet. By any rational measure, I am being very stupid.)

So, at least for me, offering the early cheaper backer options is directly depriving them of a little more cash at the end of their drive.

Shadout wrote:

Just hoping we will reach 4.25m stretch goal. Might be difficult.

Longer game is always nice, though I assume that is an obvious "stretch goal" for every dollar they get pretty much. But the Codex sounds nice.

Companion Quests should already be included u_u

Shadout wrote:

Longer game is always nice, though I assume that is an obvious "stretch goal" for every dollar they get pretty much.

Haha, it really is applicable to every dollar, yes, but we've found it worthwhile to remind people that every dollar goes into the game and nowhere else, because otherwise they get confused about stretch goals and the way we use the funding.

Anyone have any ideas for raising a million dollars in 70 hours?

Retweet? Post fliers in your neighborhood? Spam your address book?
=D I guess my only advice is "spread the word". I've done so on another forum I frequent, which is very much into older RPGs like PS:T, BG2, IWD, but that's pretty much all I can do at this point... (and yes, I know I could up my pledge, but at this point, I'm already spending money I shouldn't, what with car repairs and the baby needing a new pair of shoes ).

Torment: Tides of Numenera has surpassed Double Fine Adventure apparently! Is Project Eternity next?

: O

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rnPwL1L.png)

I'm up to 142 dollars for the extra digital books and stuff... : s

Got another screenshot for you gents

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ahfVi6k.jpg)

Full update here

Looks glorious... love the 2.5D artwork.. the level of background detail really brings the world to life.. far more so than a 3D engine with scale can capture IMO

edit

lol I just noticed the crates.. I wonder if thats the team being ironic.

That looks awesome : O

Gameguru can you throw like a couple million dollars at this? Thx

Gameguru can you throw like a couple million dollars at this? Thx

Saving that for the Autoduel 2 Kickstarter...sorry.

Come on people, we're at 3.8! You can do this.

We're almost there, less than a day left!!! Come on 4 million!!!!!!!!
(There's always a last minute surge, right?)

I guess the player Stronghold is completely out of the question

Still, glad we got the Companion Quests and stuff, I'm happy with that already. The writers involved in this are all amazing and all involved with some great games, it's a dream team of RPG writers.

I haven't back yet. I'm not sure I will. My biggest problem with PS:T was the terrible combat. Has the combat been addressed in any updates or posts?

I have no doubt that they'll create a fascinating world to explore but, I've come to find, I can't ignore bad combat.

From what I can tell, there haven't been updates as detailed as Project Eternity for that particular aspect, but they've acknowledged the combat as one of PS:T's shortcomings. Interestingly, Colin McComb said in a youtube Q&A that the opportunity for pacifistic playthroughs should be included, though he can't guarantee it this early in development. At the very least, that seems to indicate that many encounters will be solvable through dialogue.