Colin McComb is at the annual EGX trade fair in Birmingham this year, where he just finished giving a half hour talk about Torment: Tides of Numenera. It was a two part presentation. The first half was about inXile's philosophy for characterization of NPCs, and the second was about their process for narrative, quest and area design, using several backer NPCs from Sagus Cliffs as an example. Along the way, he made reference to concepts such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the GNS (Genital Naming System). Yes, it was that kind of talk. Watch it here:



There's a brief five minute Q&A session at the end, but nothing much of interest comes up there other than a welcome confirmation that all of the Cyphers in the game are hand-placed with no randomization.