Game News Torment Kickstarter media blitz begins: Campaign to launch on March 6th, Chris Avellone endorses

[Kem0sabe]

Budget 2D

 

[Rake]

Budget 2D

I don't think you need kickstarter for this.
Colin, Kevin and 1 artist can make the game alone

 

[Western]

The way i'm reading the combat is that the lower the amount raised the more probable it will be turn based. Wth higher amounts of money raised alternate combat systems can be offered (such as RTwP and Phase Based). The end goals of these systems is to bring across Numenera's PnP system, in a game that will not be especially combat heavy (imo opinion original Planescape suffered not just from RTwP but also a little too much combat that was poorly designed).

Currently it seems InXile wants to put it to a vote post kickstarter, personally I think i will be better to do this during the kickstarter, it may hurt funds but it seems more up front and will leave less people with a bitter taste in their mouths. Personally i'm relatively indiffferent and will pitch in anyway but it seems to becomming a point of contention.

Also while I think turn/phase based systems are allways better for representing PnP games on PC, I've got no idea what Numenera's system is like and that's a factor in determining how bad/not so bad a RTwP implementation will be.

 

[CrazyLoon]

Give me a break. This is the game I'm working on. Yes, budget 2D.

 

[nihil]

Give me a break. This is the game I'm working on. Yes, budget 2D.

That looks pretty awesome. What is it?

 

[CrazyLoon]

Give me a break. This is the game I'm working on. Yes, budget 2D.

That looks pretty awesome. What is it?

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph...-historical-fiction-12th-century-china.80544/

 

[Rake]

Give me a break. This is the game I'm working on. Yes, budget 2D.

what game is it?

 

[Kem0sabe]

I don't think you need kickstarter for this.
Colin, Kevin and 1 artist can make the game alone

That gem of a game was actually done by one guy, doing the design and writing, genius series of games that is.

 

[Rake]

I don't think you need kickstarter for this.
Colin, Kevin and 1 artist can make the game alone

That gem of a game was actually done by one guy, doing the design and writing, genius series of games that is.

I know. But Colin can't do the backrounds as far as i know so i'm generous.
3 persons.

 

[Surf Solar]

Give me a break. This is the game I'm working on. Yes, budget 2D.

This.

@ people (even supposed "Developers") claiming it would take a shitload of additional money to create nice looking "painted" 2d backgrounds when it's perfectly doable for cheap by many people. Trying to weasel out even more money than needed, are we?

Infinitrons screenshot looks fine, except maybe the character portraits. Still heeps better than crappy 3d.

 

[CrazyLoon]

Right on. I mean, I'm not trying to be a butt, but these are the same guys who start a kickstarter for an obscene amount of money, and still have to resort to community 3D models for their game.

 

[Infinitron]

This just goes back to the whole Coles vs. Blackthorne thing. Why can't the Coles do for 400k what he's doing for 70k? Why indeed.

CrazyLoon Do you work on this game in your spare time? Do you have an office where you work on it, that needs rent paid, or do you do it at home? Do you have employees?

Also, how long did it take you to make?

 

[CrazyLoon]

CrazyLoon Do you work on this game in your spare time? Do you have an office where you work on it, that needs rent paid, or do you do it at home? Do you have employees?

Spare time yes. But then I probably have a lot more spare time than the average person. Home and no employees.

Also, how long did it take you to make?

For that specific map location? What exactly do you mean?

 

[Infinitron]

For that specific map location?

Yeah.

 

[CrazyLoon]

For that specific map location?

Yeah.

About a week. 1 day for drawing down the concept. 1-2 days for modeling and allocating the needed assets. 1-2 days for composing the scene. 1-2 days for post work. Some of the larger scene took almost a month to complete, while the simpler ones took less than a week. It all depends.

 

[Infinitron]

For that specific map location?

Yeah.

About a week. 1 day for drawing down the concept. 1-2 days for modeling and allocating the needed assets. 1-2 days for composing the scene. 1-2 days for post work. Some of the larger scene took almost a month to complete, while the simpler ones took less than a week. It all depends.

OK. See, I'm not a conspiratorial sort. The members of the "2D Scoia'tael" like Surf Solar here think the evil companies have stolen 2D graphics away from them for no reason other than that they're nasty or stupid or something.

Personally, I doubt that, and I'm interested in whether there's some critical workflow-related reason why larger developers can't get away with creating graphics in this way.

 

[hiver]

This is not just painting something in 2D. Those backgrounds need to be put into the 3D engine and made to work with all the lights and shadows and effects and any eventual changes.
- and probably other stuff i dont know about-
That does look nice, but it also imposes some limits.
The camera angle must be static and it probably makes any changes to environment additionally difficult to do, since you need to make all new assets for each of such changes.
-edit- someone like CrazyLoon or Oscar can no doubt provide more info, im just talking as a mere layman.-

Some time ago i suggested to Kevin Saunders that maybe a hybrid approach to visuals might be worth considering.
In my suggestion the hand painted 2D backgrounds (which are then fused into the 3D world and geometry) would be used only for specific, important places while the rest of the game would use pure 3D, the likes of W2 has shown - which btw looked pretty good to me.

This, if its doable at all, should be much cheaper to make and could please everyone?

RIGHT?

hiver http://www.rpgcodex.net/ignore.php Congratulations.

well...as long as you felt you need to call me on that in this thread :
thank you troll. proof of old the good work i have done.
the weak, the arrogant, the screamers and the morons, conformists, internet retards, schadenfreude feces junkies and spoiled brats who demand entertainment and high brow discussions while they provide none, all self inflated egos shattered to pieces and tears.
(+ - a few i accidentally "included", no doubt)

seriously though... i dont give a rats ass. ill leave the codex popularity to you and your ilk.
if such shit moved me or interested me i would kill myself.

get this through your thin skull once and for all.

 

[Studio Fawn]

About a week. 1 day for drawing down the concept. 1-2 days for modeling and allocating the needed assets. 1-2 days for composing the scene. 1-2 days for post work. Some of the larger scene took almost a month to complete, while the simpler ones took less than a week. It all depends.

If you break it up and do more of the comping in photoshop you could move a lot faster Like having trees rendered separately lets you just plug them into existing space and comp in shadows.

And, best part is once you have a body of trees, you don't need to rerender them unless there is something big changed (like lighting completely different).

 

[Studio Fawn]

This is not just painting something in 2D. Those backgrounds need to be put into the 3D engine and made to work with all the lights and shadows and effects and any eventual changes.

You can make 2d behave like 3d without much trouble. Just make sure when rendering the assets you produce their normal and height maps also ... then it is the same as any 2d game, but the objects can behave with real-time lighting and even intersect eachother like fully 3d.

You lose some of the "hand touched" quality and it takes a bit more work (which is why I dropped doing that). Also the sizes of the assets you have on screen at any one time goes up (but you can manage that with just smaller maps, more zoning, or other memory asset management... such as bubbles around the character at which it begins to load objects on the map...then just don't let the character run 100 miles an hour and you have time to get those loaded by the time the character moves the screen far enough to see it).

Yea, you have a fixed isometric viewpoint though. But, I'm not so sure rotation of the camera is such a critical aspect.

 

[mindx2]

If I have to guess, I'd say it's going to be RTwP. Fargo would probably want to diversify and attract people who like RT games, IE games' fans, and people who feel that Torment 2 should have the same combat as the original.

This would be my guess as well. Though a phase-based approach would be nice since W2 is turn-based and P:E is RTwP.

 

[Wizfall]

I'm a bit tired of "2D is expensive" when indie and small budget games have very nice iso 2D.
Only wanna know 2 things about Torment : the view (and if fix/rotative camera) and if combat will be TB or RTwP.
Because i "know" all about the rest and don't need to be reassure about it : i believe they can deliver a good story.
That's why the supposed lack of info about W2 did not bother me, we knew it would be TB and top down or isometric from the start.
That and successor of W1 was all the info needed IMO.
Much less concrete design info about Torment, it's a big disappointment.
Edit : no big problem if TB or RTwP but a shame that we don't know. Same thing with graphic because i find W2 graphics really good despite not being 2D (only prob is moving camera)

 

[Blackthorne]

This just goes back to the whole Coles vs. Blackthorne thing. Why can't the Coles do for 400k what he's doing for 70k? Why indeed.

Yeah - definitely a bit of whining about that. And he's still whining for more money. It's definitely a challenge to make a game for $63k ($57k after KS and Amazon Fees.... even less after taxes, fuck me....) but we're doing it. So are others. That game Crazy Loon is making looks awesome!!! It can be done; yeah, it's tricky, but basically it comes down to people doing things on the cheap, hoping for a return later by selling a quality product. I'm certainly not living on the high horse during all of this, I can tell you that much - and frankly, my power/heating bill this month in frozen Upstate NY is kicking my ass!!! When you're an independent developer, you're not going to get all the creature comforts other developers might. See, we weren't looking to make all our money on the Kickstarter - we were using it, literally, to "kickstart" our project, not fund a lifestyle. Maybe we're younger and hungrier and willing to sacrifice more... who knows. I don't want to cast aspersions, but I know whining and tantrums when I see it.


Bt

 

[Infinitron]

Colin McComb blog update: http://colinmccomb.com/?p=182

Oh, hi there. Also: LINKSTORM!

Posted on 4 March 2013

These last few months have been a little crazy. I mean this, of course, in the very best way. They’ve also necessarily entailed a lot of quiet-mouthedness, but now the veil can be lifted on Torment: Tides of Numenera. On which I’m (gulp) the Creative Lead. I mean… yes! Woo hoo! All right, it’s both scary and exciting. I’m going to lean toward exciting.

Numenera? Yes, Numenera! Monte Cook’s Numenera, set in the Ninth World, is going to be the host for the latest addition to the Torment franchise. I had the opportunity to playtest this with Monte (and Fiery Dragon‘s James Bell, editor/writer Shanna Germain, and editorRay Vallese), and man oh man is it cool. I’m so excited to help our players tell their stories in this world, and I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to do it. Thanks, Monte!

As an introvert, it’s frequently difficult to get out and speak to people to drum up interest in something like this, but for a project like this, it’s a lot harder to remain silent (not least because my friends at inXile might drive here to kick me in the shins and points north if I did remain silent).

This is a roundabout way of self-promoting (on my very own blog? the nerve!) some of the interviews Kevin Saunders and I did to promote the Kickstarter for Torment. But first, let me extol Kevin’s virtues, because working with him is a pleasure and a joy. He’s incredibly smart, detail-oriented, quick to see issues and possibilities alike, and he’s supportive of his team. Plus, it’s really, really hard to imagine letting Kevin down… just thinking about it makes me want to work harder. (also, Adam Heine has been invaluable along the way. Seriously, he is just amazing at his job, and he’s a really good person, too… as in, “Hey, how about I move to Thailand to care for orphans?” good)

Anyway.

So, the first interview: IGN! I misspoke about combat in there; this was not Casey’s fault, but mine. “Real-time smart combat” is word salad, and I was apparently chewing with my mouth open. Sorry about that, Casey, and sorry to everyone who thought that we’re doing real-time. We’re still figuring that out, and we’ll make our decision with the aid of our backers. But be assured that we have some foundational rules that we’ll lay out and then we’ll design our system based around those ideas. What’s most important to us is that the combat feels like an integral, functional, and enjoyable part of the gameplay.

The second interview was with Polygon’s Dave Tach. I have nothing to add to this, except that I was perhaps a little excitable and needed some reining in. Good thing Kevin was there!

The third interview was today, with Destructoid’s Fraser Brown, and that one will be out on Wednesday, which is when (HOLY CRAP) our Kickstarter begins.

Oh, and tomorrow night it looks like I may be appearing on Geek and Sundry with Pat Rothfuss, Jerry Holkins, and Veronica Belmont. That’s… uh… no big deal? ::gulp::

 

[nihil]

To be fair, doing a hand painting pass over each of the background renders is one additional step, which means more work. But yeah, it's probably most of all about what tools and production pipelines staff are used to. Tell an animation God at Pixar to hand-pixel an awesome low res animation and it will probably take much longer than it should.

 

[UnknownBro]

I would love to see a system like in VtM:R where you got XP for resolving problems, not for killing mobs.
It would fit this interactive graphic novel game just right.