Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Torment: Tides of Numenera

[LilSassy]

The writing in this topic is already better than the 1.2 million words in TORMENT TIDES OF NUMENARA, IMO.

 

[Goral]

The designs, however, are incredibly pat. If you need to find a bucketful of nanocrystal chicken teeth for the Grand Snord of Qweebloth, you can be sure that on the very same map, or at most the one right next to it, you will find a destitute merchant desperate to unload a shipment.

Somehow that doesn't bother you in No Truce with the Furies though, which you're praising so much. I've seen the alpha footage and it looks much worse in this regard than TToN, although maybe it's only unfortunate choice on developer's part.

At no point did I ever feel the least bit challenged, intellectually, tactically, ethically, philosophically, or otherwise

And you felt challenged playing PoE or Shadowrun games? If so then you are intellectually challenged.

 

[jewboy]

Somewhere there is probably a publisher leaning back in his chair reading this and thinking,"I told you so" and "amateurs". I guess there is a reason why publishers avoid trying new things. Most of the time new things fail impressively and not just in the commercial sense, in every sense.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I like reading codex reviews, but I don't read prime cunta. Is this how it's going to be from now on? Every review by that attention whore mongoloid? Why is it that the dumbest people must be the loudest.

 

[jewboy]

Well VD he aint but either the game sucks or it doesn't. It sounds like the codex consensus is that it does indeed suck. Does it really matter if the review itself is some kind of great masterpiece? Maybe VD will come save the day with one of his 'good for what it is' reviews.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Hiver vs VD was the most entertaining thing about WL2...

what could have been, with this baby

 

[Roguey]

inXile only had about 12 encounters to tune, how do you end up botching that as hard as they did unless you just flat out don't care?

In case anyone's curious, here's my original submission (text only, no formatting).

That's a fine outline for an article. Their assessment was correct.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

A mystery: how could a five-million-dollar Kickstarter executed by veterans of the industry with so much experience and talent result in a fiasco of this magnitude?

Indeed, something must have went wrong during production and I wonder what it was or who is responsible. The production went way overtime but the game is fairly short from what I hear. Crises were pitched as this special thing but they ended up as simple combat encounters and there are not even that many. Companions were cut from the game even though they were stretch goals but again there doesn't seem to be all that much content aside from walls of text anyway. The game systems are exceedingly simplistic and there does not seem to be a lot of gameplay outside of reading. So I wonder..

.. what exactly did they work on all this time? Just writing unedited walls of text?

Maybe I have a naive understanding of game development but it just seems odd to me. One of the leads leaving in the middle of development, another lead as soon as the game was released? .. Chances are we are likely to hear about development trouble and mismanagement sometime in the future.

Edit: Not to mention, all those complaints about bugs and shitty optimization, even though the game was delayed that much.

 

[Bohrain]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

They need someone who knows how to properly manage such a project. You guys know who I am talking about, don't you?

Spoiler

A man worth more than five million KS bucks.

 

[Roguey]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

Plus "multiple millions." https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1647389/comments

We've seen some comments suggesting that backer funds from the Kickstarter are going towards the console versions of the game. These are fair concerns but rest assured, not a single penny of that money went towards console development. On top of the Kickstarter funding, inXile has put in multiple millions of dollars towards development of the game for PC, Mac, and Linux. In addition, Techland is footing the bill for console development.

Putting in the console port money Techland delivered, this could be pushing 10 million.

 

[Tacgnol]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

I think it's just simple project mismanagement.

Never underestimate the ability of bad project management to fuck things up.

 

[jewboy]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

Hookers and pizza? That's what I wish I had spent my $20 on at least. We probably should have just given MCA 5 million and 4 years to make some kind of story-heavy RPG. Maybe he could have done it since apparently he did most of the management for the first one. The whole Tides setting was a huge mistake though. Why couldn't they get the original Planescape setting again? I forget. I wonder how much MCA is to blame for this mess. He was supposed to try to prevent this sort of thing from happening. I mean wasn't that like his job?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I wonder what they spent on stuff like travel over the years, with team members scattered all over the world. Like when they had that big gathering of writers early in preproduction and cmcc was talking about meeting a few of them back at the hotel to prep for the 3 day brainstorming session, I couldn't help wondering how many other KS games operate in that way. Anyone who's been involved in things like that in the corporate world knows how the bills add up quickly, seems more like Interplay/big company behaviour than a KS game with ambitious goals where you need to squeeze as much value as possible out of limited funds.

 

[Bohrain]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

I think it's just simple project mismanagement.

Never underestimate the ability of bad project management to fuck things up.

I just have very hard time seeing where the money went.
Did they set up three different studios to do the same thing three times? Did Fargo murder their editor and spend two million to hide the corpse?

 

[Prime Junta]

The designs, however, are incredibly pat. If you need to find a bucketful of nanocrystal chicken teeth for the Grand Snord of Qweebloth, you can be sure that on the very same map, or at most the one right next to it, you will find a destitute merchant desperate to unload a shipment.

Somehow that doesn't bother you in No Truce with the Furies though, which you're praising so much. I've seen the alpha footage and it looks much worse in this regard than TToN, although maybe it's only unfortunate choice on developer's part.

I didn't get to play enough of No Truce to form an informed opinion of the quest design. That's why I didn't say anything about it in my preview.

At no point did I ever feel the least bit challenged, intellectually, tactically, ethically, philosophically, or otherwise

And you felt challenged playing PoE or Shadowrun games? If so then you are intellectually challenged.

Pillars on Path of the Damned is legit hard. I haven't made any comparisons to SRR in that respect. (I did point out that SRR looks, sounds, reads, plays, and feels better than T:ToN though, and I stand by that.)

 

[Nazrim Eldrak]

If inXile ever wants to stick its snout in the crowdfunding trough again, it needs to regain the trust of its fans. After a betrayal of this magnitude, that is going to be a tall order. A good start would be to come clean: to candidly explain what went wrong and where, how that five million in crowdfunding money was spent, and how a group this good could have such low standards for the quality of their work, and ultimately produce so little. They had the budget. They had the talent. They even had a ready-made isometric cRPG engine and asset production pipeline. What happened here?

I agree 100% with this and also want an explanation.

 

[Prime Junta]

Mine's bigger.

It is, and it's also really good. I'm amazed at your stamina; I would never have been able to find the stomach to record all those videos. For those of you who are clamouring for a longer skewering of the game, check it out if you haven't already.

 

[Junmarko]

This is a combat game for players who hate combat; a skill game for people who hate to fail; a story game for people who measure story by word count.

Behold, the most honest line anyone has written about it. Well said

 

[commie]

Well VD he aint but either the game sucks or it doesn't. It sounds like the codex consensus is that it does indeed suck. Does it really matter if the review itself is some kind of great masterpiece? Maybe VD will come save the day with one of his 'good for what it is' reviews.

Codex consensus also suggests Harebrained Shadowrun tablet RPG's are good. Doesn't necessarily make it fucking so.

 

[Apexeon]

What else is left on the corpse of Interplay to recycle for a quick cash grab?

 

[Apexeon]

Genuine question, what on Earth was going on with the development if they spent 5 years and 5 million dollars to make a game that feels like it had >1million budget and maybe two years of development time?

I think it's just simple project mismanagement.

Never underestimate the ability of bad project management to fuck things up.

I just have very hard time seeing where the money went.
Did they set up three different studios to do the same thing three times? Did Fargo murder their editor and spend two million to hide the corpse?

Money went to Vegas for team bondage sessions were they had to massage a alien sphincter.
Or was that bonding?

 

[Karellen]

To be somewhat fair, I can imagine that the kind of writing Tides of Numenera has must have been exhausting, difficult and time-consuming to implement. For instance, in the execution quest, the overseer will remember if you talked to them before you acquired a badge of office, so that way won't work, which is already pretty cool. However, if the Circus Minor is darkened, that freaks the overseer out so he'll let it slide because he wants to get out of there. There's stuff like this all over, stuff that - I should point out - PS:T has very little of. Few of the companions in PS:T even have quests, and companion morale was so bugged that for all practical purposes it didn't exist. The complaint about Tides of Numenera having companion quests that were too simple is disingenuous in that light. The Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon was well written, but hard to get right it was not.

So T:ToN has a lot of reactivity, but, all of these intricate extra paths to solve quests after failed rolls and such - I've only seen a few, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot more - are things that people will probably never see, because like the review pointed out, the game mechanics for exploration skill rolls is highly exploitable and I imagine most people will happily savescum if they failed, say, an 85% probability roll that can't be retaken. What's more, most of the changes aren't terribly interesting, except in a "whoa, the developers thought of that too" kind of way - they don't lead into any especially interesting results. Now, of course, there's only a handful of choices with genuinely interesting results in PS:T, which is, ultimately, rather linear and doesn't really react a whole lot to what the player is doing. But PS:T just has a more interesting scenario and better writing, so the few things that the player does get to do feel more meaningful, so that's that.

In any case, I don't think that Tides of Numenera lacks for ambition or effort. My impression is that if it was mismanaged, it's due to getting caught up in putting entirely superfluous polish on pointless details and not seeing the forest for the (dialogue) trees. So it's just a game that suffocates under the pressure of trying to live up to its spiritual predecessor, to the effect that it - entirely predictably, I might add - fails to capture the irreverent and black-humoured spirit of the original.

 

[Lurker King]

I think it's just simple project mismanagement.

Never underestimate the ability of bad project management to fuck things up.

Maybe they are just that unproductive, those glassdoor reviews come to mind

You mean these reviews?

"Good work environment, poorly organized"
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Newport Beach, CA

Recommends
Neutral Outlook
No opinion of CEO

I worked at InXile Entertainment full-time (More than a year)

Pros

Very positive atmosphere, great location, producers are encouraged to get feedback on design choices from everyone. Willing to promote from within, which is rare for the industry. This is not a good place if you're looking long-term, but as a 1-2 year position, it's worth it.

Cons

Disorganized in how they execute their projects. Very large communication gap between upper management and the engineers/artists, which sometimes translated into offhanded comments turning into week-long or even month-long blind alleys distracting important team members from the primary project. There was also a philosophical clash between the Leads' expectations of team members and HRs' expectations of team members and HRs' expectations of team members which could result in a pat on the back from a Lead turning into a negative review from management.

Advice to Management

The main thing that I hope has been learned is that having focused, clear project goals is vital to keeping everyone on the same page during development. Especially once you get toward feature-lock and engineers are pushing hard for their pet feature to get included, having a solid design bible at hand can save the project from grinding to a halt.

"Good luck to inXile - don't touch with ten foot pole"


Former Employee - Senior Artist in Newport Beach, CA
Doesn't Recommend
Disapproves of CEO


Pros

-While I was there, there were many talented people that I was proud to work with.
-Good location, right next to the beach.
-Pay was pretty good for the industry.

Cons

-Company had a hiring frenzy, by placing more cooks in the kitchen and crossed their fingers.
-You have to pick up slack of other people.
-Very visual game company, gameplay second or third.
-No backend, and management doesn't understand technology and limitations.
-Laid off everyone that was competent, and left behind the muses.
-No one left to make games, only management.

Advice to Management

Be more involved with design decisions. Don't come in at the end of development and wonder what's going on! Don't leave your trusted few to do the work, be involved for success! It such a small company, talk to your own workers! Corporation mentality doesn't work anymore, you don't have hundreds or thousands of employee like the Interplay days.


"Blind leading a sight seeing dog"
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Newport Beach, CA

Doesn't Recommend
Disapproves of CEO


Pros

Pay is generally higher than surrounding studios

Cons

"Upside down cake" studio.
Higher ups have no clue why things are failing. They refuse to talk to their own workers to acknowledge and fix their problems.

Advice to Management

Please google the following:
Peter's Principle and Dunning Kruger Effect. They both apply so perfectly to the studio.


"meh"
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee

Doesn't Recommend
Disapproves of CEO

Pros

all about the location, there

Cons

no vision, no funding, no shoes, no shirt, no service

Advice to Management
meh

 

[Junmarko]

Codex consensus also suggests Harebrained Shadowrun tablet RPG's are good. Doesn't necessarily make it fucking so.

It does. Technical flaws aside, the Shadowrun series has a good balance of Strategy-Story+C&C - throughout. The fact that they were able to achieve it, using a game engine essentially neutered by tablets, makes inXile look hopeless.