Interview "How to make a Torment game" - Mega-Interview with Kevin Saunders and Adam Heine at Iron Tower

[Infinitron]

Tags: Adam Heine; InXile Entertainment; Iron Tower; Kevin Saunders; Torment: Tides of Numenera; Vault Dweller

Vault Dweller has managed to score a massive interview with Torment: Tides of Numenera leads Kevin Saunders and Adam Heine. The interview goes over the full spectrum of topics - writing, systems, combat, reactivity - though as the title suggests, it's not so much about the game as it is about how the Torment team plans to make the game. Due to Kevin's penchant for extreme verbosity, there's no way I could possibly summarize the entire thing, so I'll just quote one of the questions and its response:

2. Making a proper Torment game is a very challenging task, mostly because what made the original so special is the writing (story, characters, interactions, etc). Thus, to make a worthy sequel, “all you have to do” is to write a great story with great characters and dialogues. How's InXile approaching it?​

Kevin: We’ve talked about the basic structure of our writing organizational approach before, so I’ll just mention that part briefly here: we’re spending considerable effort in establishing our design and writing conventions and designing example areas and characters to serve as a foundation to help guide our many writers. And we’re writing the five From the Depths novellas upfront, which will acclimate several of our writers to the setting and provide us all with a deeper understanding of the Tides.​

But I think this only partially touches upon what you’re asking. =) One key component is the strength of the creative vision. Developing and communicating this vision is one of Colin McComb’s primary responsibilities and my part is to help him succeed.​

I don’t think it’s this simple, but I believe that, in general, design by dictatorship yields the best results. To that end, I’m helping Colin be a good dictator. Colin is great about soliciting and extracting value from the feedback of others, but I try to push him to make sure he doesn’t compromise his vision in doing so (including freely ignoring (most of) my feedback when he wishes =) ). Colin’s a sincere, thoughtful guy, and empathy for others can hinder one from being an effective dictator. I also try to identify and champion the aspects of Colin’s vision that I feel are the strongest. Brian Fargo has also been doing this at key points in preproduction – reviewing we’re where at and calling out both the areas of risk he wants us to focus on and the areas of greatest potential he feels we should emphasize.​

Related to the creative vision, and Colin’s ownership of this aspect of Torment, is the other writers being empowered to own the vision for their sections of the game. The strong foundation, conventions, and examples that Colin, Adam, Tony Evans, and I are working on are all toward this end – if we provide the right guidelines to the writers, then they can exhibit full creative freedom from there, with a much greater chance that what they come up with will complement Colin’s vision. This means there’s less chance that Colin’s feedback to the other designers will require a lot of rework, so they’ll be able to build momentum and create content that accentuates their strengths. Not that we’ll perfectly achieve this, but it is how we are approaching the game’s development.​

We have added safeguards simply through the creative talent we have involved in the process. Not only do I have a lot of faith in the team (in many cases stemming from first-hand experience working with them), but I’m hoping peer review further helps us refine the content. For example, Chris Avellone has been reading everything and giving feedback along the way aimed toward strengthening the story and characters and helping Colin flesh out and communicate his vision. Finally, we’re planning for a lengthy finalization period, which will give us time to iterate and improve anything that we feel doesn’t come together well enough initially.​

I think if we were to concentrate on “this must be a worthy sequel!” then we’d hamstring ourselves a bit. We’re not explicitly attempting to ”compete” with Planescape: Torment in terms of its writing, characters, and storytelling. We are making a game that places focus on those elements, but we’ll allow Torment: Tides of Numenera to organically become its own game.​

"Empathy for others can hinder one from being an effective dictator" - when's the last time you saw something like that in an interview with a game developer? Also in the interview - Kevin Saunders' musings on the meaning of life, and even a bit of Josh Sawyer influence. Read the entire thing, it's awesome.

 

[hiver]

oh goody, goody... :rubs hands:
and my coffee is just about ready.

- for all my recent arguing with VD... his interviews are excellent stuff.

4. At the same time, Torment’s theme is fairly straightforward and the question can be answered in any way, including ‘Nothing’.

Feeling that nothing can change your nature – bad to the bone and all that – is much more satisfying that feeling that your life doesn’t matter in the least (although it’s delightfully depressing). My point is that it’s much easier to provide acceptable and satisfying in-game answers to the first question (truth, death, regret, a woman, nothing, etc) than to the second. Any thoughts on that?

Kevin: Ah, but this question seems to imply that the true answer is that our lives have no meaning. =) Are you so sure? (Personally, on an intellectual level, I do believe that life is meaningless.

But I just won’t accept that and refuse to live on a day-to-day basis as if it’s true. I make many decisions as if the world were the one I want to live in as opposed to the one we’re really in. Normally, I’m a proponent of honesty, but I’m at peace with this sort of self-deception. (Hope, you might call it.))

I can think of many things that allow people to find meaning in their lives, possible answers to “what does one life matter?”
I’m not expecting that this question will necessarily be posed to you directly in Torment. (In fact, I think it’s unlikely.) It’s not a direct analog to PST’s “what can change the nature of a man?” It’s more a way to provocatively capture the Legacy theme. This helps us in two ways. First, we felt it was important in the Kickstarter to give a glimpse of where we intended to take Torment: Tides of Numenera. While we didn’t want to spoil any of our plans for the story, we felt we had to talk about some of it so that people could understand our vision. Also, having something concrete provided more context to talk about other aspects of the game.

The second goes back to your question about writing a great story – it helps solidify the creative vision of the game for its writers. I really can’t stress this part enough – the more thoroughly everyone on the team groks its vision, the happier, more productive, and more coordinated each person will be, and the better the game will be. It’s not this simple, but I believe the three most critical factors in the quality of a game are focus, a strong vision, and ownership/empowerment of the team members. (And note that these factors overlap a lot – a focused game bolsters the vision’s strength and a strong vision facilitates empowering the team.)

And there’s a meta aspect to Torment that isn’t lost on us. Here we are, trying to craft this game that both entertains and intellectually challenges people, encourages them to think about their lives. And in doing so, it is one of our feeble attempts to create legacies for ourselves, to have a hopefully positive impact on the world.

Really, it was this aspect, combined with the serendipity involving the project, that gently tipped the scales in my decision to take this job with Brian Fargo last November.

Colin has put it this way: “it’s the reason many of us in the creative field do anything.
The leaves of the tree of history fall from it in staggering profusion, but we want to write our names on that tree anyway.

Every time a professor dies, a library burns... but we accumulate knowledge anyway. To what end? We’re essentially social animals, and a gain for one of us becomes a gain for all of us... but only if we all honor that contract and that biology.”

Nods and nods again.

oh yes.

 

[Stonewolf]

=)

 

[ghostdog]

Whoa. Massive brofist to Vault Dweller, Kevin Saunders and Adam Heine for this great interview.=)

 

[hiver]

My IQ just suffered involuntary increase after reading this.

As your Legacy changes over time, it'll give you bonuses to different items, different reactions from ancient or perceptive characters, and unlock mutually exclusive subplots within the game.

Thank the Changing God for that -... phew.

On combat:

First, I don’t think our audience is asking for “easy.”

Godamn right. You can be sure of that.

- we can have fights that are challenging and I think our backers would welcome that.

That and more. Give us Torment difficulty level too.

 

[tuluse]

I know it's become a cliché, but the ‘By Gamers, For Gamers’ motto of Interplay is a good one. Especially given the types of games we are making, we should be designing them for people who want to play them, not for people who want to skip through them. Combat designed for people who like combat, conversations designed for people who like conversations, explorable areas designed for people who like to explore.

This is Roguey sig worthy, except that it wouldn't troll anyone.

 

[Lancehead]

I know it's become a cliché, but the ‘By Gamers, For Gamers’ motto of Interplay is a good one. Especially given the types of games we are making, we should be designing them for people who want to play them, not for people who want to skip through them. Combat designed for people who like combat, conversations designed for people who like conversations, explorable areas designed for people who like to explore.

This is Roguey sig worthy, except that it wouldn't troll anyone.

It might, if one doesn't realise that the quote is used by Kevin.

Kevin's ideas on game design sound very Sawyer-ish.

Also, a very good interview, except for the first question.

 

[FeelTheRads]

This is Roguey sig worthy, except that it wouldn't troll anyone.

It doesn't make much sense though, except in a "have all three of them in so you cover everybody" way.
But, let's take "combat designed for people who like combat". What does this mean? Only Sawyer could believe that he can make a combat system that would please everybody (who likes combat). Never gonna happen.
This we make games for people who want to play them not who want to skip through them thing is a bullshit platitude. People who skip through them are not your fucking target audience in the first place so stop catering to everybody.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not the first time Josh makes reference to Interplay's old motto: http://www.gatheryourparty.com/articles/2012/10/10/interview-josh-sawyer/

Josh: I think it comes down to–in a lot of cases–that instead of people listening to criticism they just know there is criticism and then they decide independent of it that they’re going to change some stuff. So like you said, you made a modest impact, you really struck home with some people that really liked the game, and maybe the execution needed some work. So why not just make the execution of what you were going for so that the next one is totally awesome and those things that people loved about it is now even better. Then if there’s stuff that’s janky about it, yeah change the janky stuff, but not if it’s something that those people that loved the game really liked. Just make it better. I think there’s where things go wrong. People look at something and go, “Ok, so we have this core of people that love the game and this other group that fundamentally hates it, so let’s make it a different game.” And it’s like, “Well… no. They hate the game. They didn’t like anything about it. You’re not going to win those people over. They don’t even like the idea of what you’re making.”

Some people think it’s a cliche phrase, but when I was at Interplay the model of Interplay was, “By gamers, for gamers.” And some people are like, “Well that’s every game.” But no, it really isn’t.

Del: Yeah, no, it really isn’t.

Josh: There are people that focus on making games for people that hate games. And… well, that’s ok, but I’m not not interested in doing that. I want to make games for people that love games. People that really enjoy them and playing them. I’m not not trying to make a game for people that do not enjoy the challenge of them of the idea of them. So it’s interesting when you get into these genres that are kind more enthusiast or ‘hard-core’ genres like RPGs and you’ve gotta be careful how much you’re appealing to people that don’t like RPGs. It’s like, “Well… they don’t like them. They don’t like any of them or anything about them.”

 

[tuluse]

It doesn't make much sense though, except in a "have all three of them in so you cover everybody" way.
But, let's take "combat designed for people who like combat". What does this mean? Only Sawyer could believe that he can make a combat system that would please everybody (who likes combat). Never gonna happen.
This we make games for people who want to play them not who want to skip through them thing is a bullshit platitude. People who skip through them are not your fucking target audience in the first place so stop catering to everybody.

He means content should be designed for the people who want to experience the content. Contrast this with Bioware and Hepler who want to design content that can be easily skipped for people who don't want to experience the content.

For example, there is a sizable minority of RPG players who like to avoid combat when possible. Combat should not be designed with them in mind. Instead it should be designed for people who want to fight their way through.

 

[Lancehead]

This we make games for people who want to play them not who want to skip through them thing is a bullshit platitude. People who skip through them are not your fucking target audience in the first place so stop catering to everybody.

Interesting that you call not catering to everyone a bullshit platitude, then appeal to designers not to cater to everyone.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I take it he means combat that feels like it's there to really satisfy those who like combat, instead of filler to distract those players until the next piece of dialogue, which in turn isn't just an excuse to get you to explore the next place, which isn't just an excuse to have you meet new enemies. Not trying to please everybody all the time (because that would be the perfect game) but having elements to please many types of players instead of making it a game for "storyfags" or "combatfags"

 

[Delterius]

For example, there is a sizable minority of RPG players who like to avoid combat when possible. Combat should not be designed with them in mind. Instead it should be designed for people who want to fight their way through.

Well, I'd be careful not to include those who want to avoid combat by gaming the game. There's BioWare's supposed demographic of people who just want to experience the narrative without the gameplay in the way; but there's also all of us who want to create as different characters as possible and experience the narrative in different ways because of the mechanical choices we made.

 

[MicoSelva]

Does anyone have a link to the vision document they mention in the interview?

 

[tuluse]

Delterius, that's sort of the whole point of Sawyer's statement. To not design games for people that don't like games.

 

[Rake]

This is Roguey sig worthy, except that it wouldn't troll anyone.

It doesn't make much sense though, except in a "have all three of them in so you cover everybody" way.
But, let's take "combat designed for people who like combat". What does this mean? Only Sawyer could believe that he can make a combat system that would please everybody (who likes combat). Never gonna happen.
This we make games for people who want to play them not who want to skip through them thing is a bullshit platitude. People who skip through them are not your fucking target audience in the first place so stop catering to everybody.

I've never once played a CRPG where it felt like the combat was anything other than time-wasting filler that got in the way of me enjoying the parts of the game I actually liked. It's my least favorite part of all of them. The last thing I want is a more involved "strategic layer" to get in the way of my fun.

That quote is from someone at Obsidian forums. I take what Sawyer said as that he is not designing the combat with people like that in mind. Same with dialogue.

are not your fucking target audience in the first place so stop catering to everybody

He doesn't. But that works both ways. Many people in Codex are also not part of the target audience. P:E combat is designed for people who liked IE combat. If someone finds IE games mediocre or their combat a clusterfuck, chances are that he will have similar problems with P:E as well. I speak generaly here, i don't know if you liked IE games or not

 

[Infinitron]

Does anyone have a link to the vision document they mention in the interview?

It was released during the Kickstarter campaign: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...n-doc-and-holy-crap-another-screenshot.81896/

 

[tuluse]

Does anyone have a link to the vision document they mention in the interview?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/444758

 

[FeelTheRads]

Interesting that you call not catering to everyone a bullshit platitude

A platitude is a platitude exactly because it's so obvious it doesn't even need to be uttered. What I'm saying is that he contradicts himself.

Tell me, what is this:

Combat designed for people who like combat, conversations designed for people who like conversations, explorable areas designed for people who like to explore.

?

Combat designed for people who like combat... who are these people? How do you decide which ones like combat and which don't? People skipping turn-based combat don't like combat? People skipping real-time combat don't like combat? People who skip it no matter what? For who you design it and how so that it's for EVERYBODY who likes combat?
Same with conversations and explorable areas.

That's why I said that, at least to me, it sounds like trying to cater to everybody... except those that umm.. don't like games so they shouldn't be mentioned in the first place.

 

[Infinitron]

FeelTheRads, you're trying too hard. Now can we please talk about Torment ITT

 

[Delterius]

tuluse

just nitpicking the wording.

 

[The Vanished One]

Great read, thanks VD.

I'm actually getting my hopes up for this one. Looks like they have strong focus, solid organization and a lot of talent at their disposal.

 

[tuluse]

A platitude is a platitude exactly because it's so obvious it doesn't even need to be uttered. What I'm saying is that he contradicts himself.

I think his point was that it *should* be a platitude, but it isn't because lots of games are designed for people who don't like the game part.

Tell me, what is this:

Besides you being retarded? Josh being super general because he's trying to get his idea across quickly and he isn't talking about a specific game.

There are people who like video games, and even RPGs, who do not like combat. The combat portions of RPGs should not be designed to try to appeal to these people. In fact, I'm guilty of this myself now that I say it. I've lobbied for this in the Torment kickstarter. Instead the combat should be designed for people who want it, if someone doesn't want combat they should play a different game or the game should have alternate paths that don't involve combat.

 

[FeelTheRads]

FeelTheRads, you're trying too hard. Now can we please talk about Torment ITT

Sure, bro:

Torment looks pretty good.

But I liked you calling me the anti-Roguey in some other topic so I'm trying to keep up with that persona.

 

[Infinitron]

I like how this interview is sort of like a complement to our own interview with Colin McComb. We got one, VD got the other two.

ksaun, how long does it take you to write those walls of texts? Have you considered doing some writing for the game as well?