Every game needs playtesting during development since it provides scathing criticism which is very helpful as compared to when the game is finished and they can no longer do any major changes.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Torment Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
Snarky article: https://killscreen.com/articles/advice-from-torment-tides-of-numenera/
ADVICE FROM TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA
Torment: Tides of Numenera is, in its own words, “chewy and full of strangeness.” The game’s beta sets players down in the city of Sagus Cliffs, where weird humans and alien “visitants” live in squalor beside buried spaceships. You meet citizens who can’t stop sprouting extra toes, others who drink and brood about psychic wars, and one who’s trying hard to stop a robot from having babies. They toil in the shadow of countless dead civilizations, as well as the shadow of the monumental Planescape: Torment (1999), whose themes, protagonist, and aversion to short sentences have been carried over intact to Monte Cook’s anything-goes Numenera setting.
The one constant in Cook’s screwball future is that nobody seems to have any idea what they’re doing. The instruction manuals for every space VCR went missing about a million years ago, and now people hit random buttons and hope for the best. And yet every skinless time traveler within the city limits is happy to dispense smarmy advice about how you, the Capable One, should live your life, just before they ask you to solve the riddle of the stars or repair the ancient machine that their dick is stuck inside.
I came away from the beta with a wealth of advice and aphorisms passed on by talking bugs and sentient triangles. Rather than trying to judge the unfinished game (which, I should disclose, I backed on Kickstarter), I’ve instead reviewed the advice that the characters in it were eager to give me.
“Everything is worth seeing, even the boring bits. Take your time, talk to everyone you meet, and keep your eyes open!”
Some busybody told me this early on—it might have been Otero, one of those eccentric videogame characters who hangs around the entrance of a city giving people tips. It’s standard advice for questing minds: stick your hand in every burrow, follow every turtle. I had no idea how much trouble this approach would cause inTorment.
As I exhausted every dialogue tree (including that of Otero, who is himself one of “the boring bits”), I was given dribs of XP and several single-use items called Cyphers as rewards. These can only be consumed during a Crisis, one of the game’s hand-crafted combat encounters. But Crises are so rare, and so avoidable, that I missed every chance to use the Cyphers I collected. For the crime of being given these useless items (I believe I had four) by grateful NPCs, the game afflicted me with “Cypher Sickness,” a stat-reducing ailment.
It took me a while to take Cypher Sickness seriously. You can’t sell items or give them to other party members in the beta, so I wasn’t sure I could reduce my Cypher load at all until I found a Crisis. In the absence of other ideas, I resolved to keep picking up Cyphers and hope for a hair of the dog cure. I soon became very sick indeed:
“Never buy lunch from Meatmonger before you go for a chat with Master Artisan.”
A sort of science wizard warned me here not to buy steaks underground from a man who cuts them from vats of endlessly regenerating meat—the food gave him (the wizard) stomach trouble once. His recounting of this event was neither amusing nor useful. By this point my character’s very bones were afire with Cypher Fever.
Due to the beta’s restrictions on merchants, the Meatmonger couldn’t sell me anything anyway, so I was safe from his steaks. I stopped by an inn in an attempt to rest and dispel my item cancer, but the bed merchants would not accept my “shins” (the local currency). Disgusted, I threw my Cyphers on the ground at their feet. This also did not cure my Cypher Sickness.
“I’m sure the Cult of the Changing God will hold the answer.”
The cultists did not hold the answer. Instead they made me fix their multi-dimensional clock, ignored my requests to rent a bed, and directed me toward the next group of needy souls.
“The avatrol whistles while it runs, a fearful sound. Perhaps even for the avatrol.”
I had to pass a speech check to receive this wisdom, so you know that it’s good. It came from what looked like a floating glass eyeball wearing a robe. There are no “avatrols” in the beta, but this observation made me wonder if they’re one of those high-strung animals that attack their own reflections, as some cats do.
As it happens, I finally cured my character’s Cypher Sickness by accidentally killing him with a mirror. As in Planescape, the protagonist of Torment wakes up again right after “death,” so this turned out to be an easy cure for status effects. I wish I’d found it sooner, but there isn’t much in the beta that can kill you.
“You can laugh, but the old saying is undeniably true: the tongue that wields the words is deadlier than the hand that wields the sword.”
The old saying “the pen is mightier than the sword” is much snappier than this one, and it’s troubling to see the citizens of the Ninth World fattening up our truisms with their own alliteration. This came from Dhama, one of the grizzled psychics in the Fifth Eye, a bar cut from the same cloth as the Smoldering Corpse.
He’s not wrong. Intellect towered over the game’s other stats in my playthrough. The Torment beta isn’t balanced yet, but the original Planescape gave players little incentive to build a character for anything but conversation. It’s hard to tell before release whether developer InXile sees that as something to emulate or correct.
“When one stands at the utmost peak of the highest mountain, an advance is no better than a retreat: all change is decline.”
Spoken by a rotten old alien brain in a flashback told Choose Your Own Adventure-style. (Although they’re becoming a cliché in Kickstarter RPGs, Torment’s CYOA segments punch above their weight.) This advice demonstrates a commendable bias for inaction, which is one of the performance evaluation metrics at my dream job. But in the game, it’s also a laudable example of purposeful bad advice: the brain wants to delay you, not advise you. As you waste time listening to its philosophy, pondering all the “boring bits,” it marshals its strength to attack.
It’s true that the Numenera setting can feel indulgent, inclined to let too many far-flung concepts share the stage at once. But its shifting rules and narrative frames give the Torment writers more room to misdirect and disorient their players. It’s exhilarating to watch a game lie with conviction (as it does again later, in another note of false authority that I shouldn’t spoil), leaving players to work their own way to the truth. Of all the promising and exasperating signs of the Torment beta, this narrative courage stands out as the best reason to return.
“You might ask Mapper, over there by the shanties. He’ll be the one with the maps on his skin.”
By far the greatest advice I received in the Ninth World. Mapper was indeed right over there. He had the maps on his skin. He knew where I should go next.
Prime Junta
Guest
It is in my view bad form to snark about bugs and missing features in a beta, if you're writing an article. That's what forums are for.
Especially those are pre-patch
- Joined
- May 29, 2010
- Messages
- 35,790
If thousands of people are willing to do it, might as well let them.
Prime Junta
Guest
I enjoy it, if it's a game I'm invested in. Gives a peek behind the curtain and more of a sense of ownership of it, plus a possibility to influence development in small ways.
throwaway
Cipher
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 492
Actually that article got me wondering, Is the main characters immorality constantly reinforced throughout the game like with the walking zombie?
Because with the very little exposure I've tried to get from the beta already from surviving that fall(which could be due to some other thing) it's just another inquisitive stranger in another strange land.
Because with the very little exposure I've tried to get from the beta already from surviving that fall(which could be due to some other thing) it's just another inquisitive stranger in another strange land.
Lord Andre
Arcane
While I enjoy Prime Junta's notes from the beta, without which this thread would be dead, I don't particularly trust his judgement since he likes PoE. Is there anyone playing the beta that also thinks PoE is a complete piece of garbage ? If there is, please post some opinions, I and probably other people would enjoy more sources of information.
I think PoE is mediocre and agree with Prime Junta's notes on TToN.
It's pretty good and seems to head in a good way. For storyfags, anyway, combatfags can already start bitching about the game if they didn't notice it since kickstarter.
Lord Andre
Arcane
What about the start, is it really that bad ?
A bit overwritten, a bit slow. I guess it is nice for 1st playthrough, for second one I'd skip right to the mere, such mode would be nice.
But once you land in sagus cliffs it picks up quickly. So it's not like one cannot endure those 30 mins to start the game.
But once you land in sagus cliffs it picks up quickly. So it's not like one cannot endure those 30 mins to start the game.
Prime Junta
Guest
Planescape: Torment:
:throws you in the deep end of the pool and goes 'mind the sharks':
T:ToN:
:gently helps you put on those little floaty things on your arms and nudges you into the kiddie pool:
Once you wade in and the water gets deeper it's fine, but the beginning really is extremely handholdy and dumps a lot of information on you. Of course that's the way most people like it and it'll certainly stop a lot of players from giving up in confusion in the first five minutes, but I do feel very strongly that it's not right for a Torment spiritual successor -- and the beginning is an important part of the game.
kwanzabot
Cipher
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2009
- Messages
- 597
i don't think zombies and dustmen can be called sharks =/
Irenaeus III
Unwanted
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2016
- Messages
- 990
Snarky article: https://killscreen.com/articles/advice-from-torment-tides-of-numenera/
ADVICE FROM TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA
Torment: Tides of Numenera is, in its own words, “chewy and full of strangeness.” The game’s beta sets players down in the city of Sagus Cliffs, where weird humans and alien “visitants” live in squalor beside buried spaceships. You meet citizens who can’t stop sprouting extra toes, others who drink and brood about psychic wars, and one who’s trying hard to stop a robot from having babies. They toil in the shadow of countless dead civilizations, as well as the shadow of the monumental Planescape: Torment (1999), whose themes, protagonist, and aversion to short sentences have been carried over intact to Monte Cook’s anything-goes Numenera setting.
The one constant in Cook’s screwball future is that nobody seems to have any idea what they’re doing. The instruction manuals for every space VCR went missing about a million years ago, and now people hit random buttons and hope for the best. And yet every skinless time traveler within the city limits is happy to dispense smarmy advice about how you, the Capable One, should live your life, just before they ask you to solve the riddle of the stars or repair the ancient machine that their dick is stuck inside.
I came away from the beta with a wealth of advice and aphorisms passed on by talking bugs and sentient triangles. Rather than trying to judge the unfinished game (which, I should disclose, I backed on Kickstarter), I’ve instead reviewed the advice that the characters in it were eager to give me.
“Everything is worth seeing, even the boring bits. Take your time, talk to everyone you meet, and keep your eyes open!”
Some busybody told me this early on—it might have been Otero, one of those eccentric videogame characters who hangs around the entrance of a city giving people tips. It’s standard advice for questing minds: stick your hand in every burrow, follow every turtle. I had no idea how much trouble this approach would cause inTorment.
As I exhausted every dialogue tree (including that of Otero, who is himself one of “the boring bits”), I was given dribs of XP and several single-use items called Cyphers as rewards. These can only be consumed during a Crisis, one of the game’s hand-crafted combat encounters. But Crises are so rare, and so avoidable, that I missed every chance to use the Cyphers I collected. For the crime of being given these useless items (I believe I had four) by grateful NPCs, the game afflicted me with “Cypher Sickness,” a stat-reducing ailment.
It took me a while to take Cypher Sickness seriously. You can’t sell items or give them to other party members in the beta, so I wasn’t sure I could reduce my Cypher load at all until I found a Crisis. In the absence of other ideas, I resolved to keep picking up Cyphers and hope for a hair of the dog cure. I soon became very sick indeed:
“Never buy lunch from Meatmonger before you go for a chat with Master Artisan.”
A sort of science wizard warned me here not to buy steaks underground from a man who cuts them from vats of endlessly regenerating meat—the food gave him (the wizard) stomach trouble once. His recounting of this event was neither amusing nor useful. By this point my character’s very bones were afire with Cypher Fever.
Due to the beta’s restrictions on merchants, the Meatmonger couldn’t sell me anything anyway, so I was safe from his steaks. I stopped by an inn in an attempt to rest and dispel my item cancer, but the bed merchants would not accept my “shins” (the local currency). Disgusted, I threw my Cyphers on the ground at their feet. This also did not cure my Cypher Sickness.
“I’m sure the Cult of the Changing God will hold the answer.”
The cultists did not hold the answer. Instead they made me fix their multi-dimensional clock, ignored my requests to rent a bed, and directed me toward the next group of needy souls.
“The avatrol whistles while it runs, a fearful sound. Perhaps even for the avatrol.”
I had to pass a speech check to receive this wisdom, so you know that it’s good. It came from what looked like a floating glass eyeball wearing a robe. There are no “avatrols” in the beta, but this observation made me wonder if they’re one of those high-strung animals that attack their own reflections, as some cats do.
As it happens, I finally cured my character’s Cypher Sickness by accidentally killing him with a mirror. As in Planescape, the protagonist of Torment wakes up again right after “death,” so this turned out to be an easy cure for status effects. I wish I’d found it sooner, but there isn’t much in the beta that can kill you.
“You can laugh, but the old saying is undeniably true: the tongue that wields the words is deadlier than the hand that wields the sword.”
The old saying “the pen is mightier than the sword” is much snappier than this one, and it’s troubling to see the citizens of the Ninth World fattening up our truisms with their own alliteration. This came from Dhama, one of the grizzled psychics in the Fifth Eye, a bar cut from the same cloth as the Smoldering Corpse.
He’s not wrong. Intellect towered over the game’s other stats in my playthrough. The Torment beta isn’t balanced yet, but the original Planescape gave players little incentive to build a character for anything but conversation. It’s hard to tell before release whether developer InXile sees that as something to emulate or correct.
“When one stands at the utmost peak of the highest mountain, an advance is no better than a retreat: all change is decline.”
Spoken by a rotten old alien brain in a flashback told Choose Your Own Adventure-style. (Although they’re becoming a cliché in Kickstarter RPGs, Torment’s CYOA segments punch above their weight.) This advice demonstrates a commendable bias for inaction, which is one of the performance evaluation metrics at my dream job. But in the game, it’s also a laudable example of purposeful bad advice: the brain wants to delay you, not advise you. As you waste time listening to its philosophy, pondering all the “boring bits,” it marshals its strength to attack.
It’s true that the Numenera setting can feel indulgent, inclined to let too many far-flung concepts share the stage at once. But its shifting rules and narrative frames give the Torment writers more room to misdirect and disorient their players. It’s exhilarating to watch a game lie with conviction (as it does again later, in another note of false authority that I shouldn’t spoil), leaving players to work their own way to the truth. Of all the promising and exasperating signs of the Torment beta, this narrative courage stands out as the best reason to return.
“You might ask Mapper, over there by the shanties. He’ll be the one with the maps on his skin.”
By far the greatest advice I received in the Ninth World. Mapper was indeed right over there. He had the maps on his skin. He knew where I should go next.
Great find, Infinitron. Well written article, had good fun reading it.
The author has some other good stylish material, such as this PoE review: https://killscreen.com/articles/devils-details-pillars-eternity/
I particularly like his obsession with Od Nua and the history of the world, disagree about his negative assessment of the end game since I have a personal opinion about how the imprisoned cunt was lying.
He also likes GM and Durance
Oh, he also has a great D:OS review: https://killscreen.com/articles/speaking-inanimate-objects-divinity-original-sin/
The pissed off fanboysim complaining that he's trying too hard just for writing like an adult is the cherry on top.
From the little I read, this guy is a very good writer and reviewer, I wish he would post here and help make Codex great again.
Last edited:
Prime Junta
Guest
I may have been exaggerating a little. For effect.
MRY
Wormwood Studios
To quote the soon-to-be Count of Monte Cristo, languishing in Chateau d'If, "Wait, and hope." All of the feedback we have gotten regarding the intro -- especially the extremely detailed feedback that many Codexers have given me via PMs -- has been invaluable. As others have noted, reworkings take time, and time is a precious commodity at the moment.
Also, I thought that article was good, though mostly because he liked my Mere and quoted one of my Codexian references.
SymbolicFrank
Magister
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2010
- Messages
- 1,668
So, in short:
All the boxes are checked, but there is no cohesion or emotion to be found. Build by committee and contractors.
Next!
All the boxes are checked, but there is no cohesion or emotion to be found. Build by committee and contractors.
Next!
Prime Junta
Guest
Nah. It's somewhat lacking in cohesion (visuals, some of the writing) but there's emotion a-plenty. Also the reactivity is superb; that's a lot of work and hard to do well, and here it really shines.
This is not something they phoned in.
It would be more impressive with an art Nazi though. Someone with taste, a clear vision of how it should look, and the chops to impose it. That's a rare combination of traits though: Hitler's watercolors sucked and his architectural sketches weren't much better.
FeelTheRads
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
- Messages
- 13,716
I have also very recently re-played and completed PST so there isn't much of that "nostalgia goggles" shit.
That being said, while at least so far (didn't play through the whole beta) it doesn't seem like this will have that spark of genius that PST had, it has the potential to be a great experience. I find the writing very good and it's interesting to walk around and talk to people and find out bits of stuff about the world which was also a big part in PST. I like the way fights are handled as well as the various options you have to solve conflicts.
The start is not bad once, but I can see it getting annoying. In PST, you can get out of the mortuary in a couple of minutes if you wish, but I never felt like doing that since the content there is cool too and it's not as linear as it is here where's it's just a tutorial/character editor. I think they should give you the option you skip this to the actual character editor that comes at the end of this tutorial and let you edit everything in that. As it is, it doesn't make sense anyway that you can edit some things but not others.
Apart from that my biggest complaints are the annoying UI design decisions (included here the character animation too), the poor portrait art and the seemingly uninteresting party members. Calli gets a pass for being a red-headed MILF, the other guy at the start I don't even remember his name and I felt no interest to keep him. Unless he's forced onto you at some point it looks like he'll be relegated to one of those "well, I played it several times, I might as well try this too" playthroughs, in case the game ends up being worthy of that.
Edit: I would also like to point out that the start might also feel pointless exactly because you get the chance to modify most of the stuff at the end. If they went for an approach where they force you to live with the choices you made it might have ended up different.
As it is, you have to wonder why the hell do you even get those choices if after that some UI window pops up and essentially tells you "lol you made choices? well, they don't really matter much at all". Pretty much like with Fallout 3 and other games that allow you to edit the character after defining it through their "revolutionary" in-game character creator.
Either give the option to skip it or make it definitive. I vote for skipping.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
https://www.pixeldynamo.com/feature...ing-legacy-planescape-torment-tides-numenera/
Carrying on the legacy of Planescape: Torment with Tides of Numenera
Imitation done right, by not doing too much
Long, long ago, during the first (or maybe second or third) golden age of CRPGs, one title stood out amid the crowd of classics for two reasons: It was really, really well written and it was really, really weird.
I’m talking, of course, about Planescape: Torment. Although it used the Infinity Engine and drew concepts from D&D like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 (Planescape is a campaign setting for the pen and paper game), it was really its own thing; dark, morbid and bizarre. The people you met and the things you did were usually outlandish and unsettling in some way, and it didn’t mind altering and streamlining the game mechanics of D&D to better suit its needs.
More importantly, Planescape: Torment had something to say – several things, in fact. Developer Black Isle Studios packed an enormous amount of questing, character development, player choice, and dialogue into the game’s relatively small setting, and it was challenging, evocative stuff that added up to a unified story. Skipping the dialogue and descriptive text in Planescape: Torment would be as absurd as skipping pages ten at a time in a novel to reach the end faster. It was worth taking the time to read, and was actually kind of the point.
The new kid on the block
All in all, Planescape: Torment was a wonder, and although many RPGs are held in equal esteem (Baldur’s Gate among them) nothing I know of has really matched it on its own turf, or even tried to play on that turf at all.
But that’s just what inXile Entertainment explicitly set out to do with Torment: Tides of Numenera. To use the developer’s own words, Tides of Numenera continues the “thematic legacy” of Planescape: Torment and, since successfully raising over 4 million dollars in March of 2013, we’ve been learning more and more what inXile means by that through Kickstarter updates and dev blog entries. Now, finally, on the 26th of January, the game launched into Early Access and we got a chance to see for ourselves if it’s working.
So, is it? Is Torment: Tides of Numenera shaping up to be a new Torment we fans can proudly place on our shelves (or hard drives) next to the original? In a word: Yes.
More a protégé than a challenger
Although this is a very early build and much has yet to be revealed or finalized, the game’s tone and feel are pretty clearly established, and it seems both very like and very unlike the revered predecessor it tries to emulate. The dissimilarity isn’t a failing, though. All signs point to inXile succeeding where so many fail when continuing a franchise: discovering and preserving the core of what makes it great.
All you have to do is read this page of the Tides of Numenera website to see that inXile has a great deal of respect for Planescape: Torment and wants to emulate it by analyzing it, finding the structures and focal points that made it the kind of game it was rather than merely copying an aesthetic or rehashing old ideas. The effect of this is evident at every turn in the beta.
Prepare to read, a lot
Like its predecessor, Tides of Numenera is first, foremost, and unapologetically a story. Sometimes, even often, I felt like I was reading a choose your own adventure with sound effects. Now, that’s not to say there’s no exploration and nothing to see, there is, but they feel more like brief breaks from the real action of the game, which is reading text and making choices based on it. Where Tides of Numenera seems to differ is in emphasis, pushing things even further into the realm of the written word than Planescape did. The game’s visuals take on the quality of a kind of shorthand (a very well-executed shorthand) for the rich and elaborate descriptions given in text and, at least so far, happenings on screen are limited to walking/running and a few visual effects. Of course, this may change some in the coming months, but even if it didn’t the people, places and situations presented in text are so interesting I don’t think I’d really mind.
Just like its mentor, it also has a healthy helping of weirdness. An ancient machine intelligence tries to build children out of its own body, the city guards are formed from the life force of the citizens, etc. It does skew slightly less morbid than Planescape did, though. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a socially accepted religious cult that eats people to absorb their memories, but it’s not morbid at every turn like Planescape was, just every third turn or so.
Taking chances
As for gameplay. Tides of Numenera isn’t merely a choose your own adventure. There are multiple approaches to sticky situations, and the kind of character you’ve chosen will certainly have an effect. Any time you attempt to accomplish something – whether with brute force, speed or intelligence – you’ll have to take a good old dice roll, the success of which is influenced by your character’s relevant skills and stats as well as any points you may choose to contribute from one of your three stat pools to improve your chances. There’s a bit of strategy in choosing when to take a chance and spend your points now or hold on to them for a future challenge, and confirming a selection can be pretty tense.
Similarly to how Planescape’s game mechanics were based on D&D (however loosely),Tides of Numenera’s are taken from another pen and paper game (called Numenera), and I’d say this change of system is actually an improvement over the older game as it fits the style and priorities of Torment better than the rather combat-heavy Dungeons and Dragons. Talking, sneaking, or tricking your way out is just as viable an option than fighting in the beta (if not moreso), which was good for me since my character was all brains and no brawn.
In fact, the first time things looked like they’d turn to fighting I surrendered, and the game simply continued from there. I avoided direct conflict the entire seven hours I played. Again, this is an area where Tides of Numenera doubled down on an aspect ofPlanescape, and it was refreshing to have such an option. Unfortunately, given the current state of combat in the beta, it was also kind of necessary.
Wait your turn
The combat in Tides of Numenera is turn-based rather than the real-time with pausing ofPlanescape, and it’s very cumbersome at the moment. Even if enemies are off screen you have to wait several seconds for them to complete their turn, and if you’re trying to hide and use the environment to your advantage like I did this can mean spending upwards of a minute between turns as enemies just move from place to place without being aware of you. If you’ve played games like this, you know a minute is a lot longer than it sounds. The greater the number of enemies, the worse this becomes, and I found myself just wishing the turn-based encounter was over so I could get back to reading.
Again, this is a beta and a lot can change, but at the moment turn-based encounters grind the pace of the game almost to a halt. It also appeared to be the buggiest aspect of the build. I had to quit and reload several times due to a glitch that made the game unresponsive during my turn. I’d call that a good sign rather than a bad one, though, as it might very well mean the devs are still tightening things up in the combat department.
Closing thoughts
Overall, I’d say the signs are very good for Torment: Tides of Numenera. WhilePlanescape: Torment is certainly leaving its mark on the game, inXile is also crafting something unique that very much stands on its own. Fans of The Nameless One’s journey should certainly be excited for this one, but it’s appeal is not simple nostalgia. Anyone who’s less interested in grinding for gear and power-leveling than they are in their companion’s’ backstory and whether to hunt down the monster for the townsfolk or help it escape should keep an eye on Torment: Tides of Numenera.
Prime Junta
Guest
You can make a mishmash of styles and still have it be visually coherent. Take modern Rome, for example. Or Paris, for that matter. They're a huge mishmash of architectural styles from the Roman Empire to modern glass fronts, with every megalomaniacal pope/king/emperor/Duce/president throwing in something, yet they hang together just fine.
T:ToN OTOH just looks like it had a bunch of different people working on different assets and then threw them together.
(with stupidly rectilinear cobblestones)
FeelTheRads
Arcane
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2008
- Messages
- 13,716
To be fair, though, given the source material they had to work with they did a pretty good job. First, the art in Numenera has no style to speak of, and quality wise it ranges anywhere from amateurish to downright horrendous with just a couple of decent pieces.
Prime Junta
Guest
They're not really copying the Numenera art style anywhere much. All that variation would give them the freedom to do things their way if they wanted to, and they had a clear idea of what they wanted to do.
It's not horrid by any means; I just find it lacking in this respect compared to PS:T. Although to be fair PS:T's coherence kind of fell apart once out of Sigil too.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.