tormentrpg.tumblr.com/post/130695185060/updated-our-journal-48-third-alpha-systems-testUpdate #48
Third Alpha Systems Test Released, Crisis Gameplay Demoed
TL; DR: Jeremy on AST C0; Gameplay Video
Jeremy here to talk about our third Alpha Systems Test (C0), which gives our backers the first chance to get their hands on one of our Crisis scenarios. If you need a reminder, we provided this PDF describing our Crisis concept. I wanted to take advantage of this release to describe some of the mechanics and interfaces of Crises, both so our alpha backers can hop in and play, and so all of our backers gain more insight into what we're doing. I think the best way to start is to crack into how a Crisis actually works.
Crisis System Rules
When things get tense (and, more importantly, time-sensitive) in TTON, we enter a turn-based mode. Each individual character, as well as some elements of the environment, take one turn at a time. The order in which characters act is based on an initiative roll at the start of combat. Items, skill training, and abilities can provide an edge on this roll.
In a Crisis, you control the Last Castoff and any companions you may have. When it's a character's turn, they can take one Anoetic Action, one Occultic Action, set up one Defensive Maneuver (disabled for C0), as well as move (with the movement distance available determined by items, skills, and abilities).
This interface shows off the party portraits, Pools and available actions. Note that the UI is still in a WIP state.
The Anoetic Action is a quick, optional action, useful for triggering support abilities and cyphers. These include switching weapons, activating buffs, or employing traversal abilities like teleports – for instance, the companion Aligern can activate his Living Tattoos, providing a buff to the next action he takes. PCs don't need to use their Anoetic Action every turn, but when the circumstances are right they provide an opportunity to maximize effects and add to your tactical advantage.
Occultic Actions are the main actions for the turn. Attacks, most esoteries, and more complex and powerful cyphers consume this action. Alternately, PCs can use this action to interact with objects in the environment or even strike up a (fast-paced) conversation with their enemies. As described in the Crisis Concept document, interacting with objects and people is a key part of our Crisis design. Taking advantage of these options can tip the scales of a combat encounter or even end it outright.
For AST C0, we've chosen to leave the last type of action - Defensive Maneuvers - out for now. There are a couple reasons for this: 1) We didn't feel like the UI was quite ready for primetime; 2) We felt like there were plenty of mechanics for our players to learn as is; 3) The scenario used for C0 occurs early in the game, when your party would have relatively few defensive options available.
When we do include the feature in a future release, Defensive Maneuvers will function as toggles. You use them to set up how the PC will behave off-turn. For example, a crafty jack might choose to trade off some defensive readiness for the opportunity to attack enemies who become flanked or otherwise distracted. A brave glaive might choose to sacrifice for his allies, interposing himself between an enemy and his besieged friend.
Applying Effort in a Crisis
In our Crisis system rules, the player has three Pools - Might, Speed and Intellect. These Pools represent not just health, but also your physical and mental capabilities and resources. When you take damage, you'll receive it to one of your three Pools depending on which one the enemy is targeting. But, Pools can also be expended using the Effort system to power up your attacks and abilities with more damage, accuracy, as well as for lowering the difficulty on other checks, such as in conversations. While your first instinct might be to conserve your Pools, it can often be worthwhile to spend them so you can handle challenges in a Crisis more effectively.
If you'll recall, all skill checks in Numenera are Difficult Tasks, whether that's hitting someone in the face with your fist or talking them out of a fight, and Effort (and your Pools) is how you can lower the difficulty of that task. So, trading off your Pools often becomes a tactical decision in how you want to proceed in a Crisis - either playing more recklessly by hitting faster and harder, or more conservatively by saving your Pools for absorbing incoming damage.
There are other ways you can lower the difficulty of an attack, too. For instance, you can employ various tactical options to gain "Assets". In combat, you'll be able to get these from positioning (i.e.: flanking) as well as from Fettles conferred by abilities (Fettle is the TTON word for status effect).
For example, Aligern's Dazzle esotery showers a target in pyrotechnic sparks that leaves them with the Distracted Fettle for 1 round. This reduces the difficulty of hitting the target by 3. Keep in mind that the enemies will try to employ the same techniques to make your party members easier to hit, as well. When a PC is attacked, that PC makes a defense roll to evade the strike. If a party member gains a Fettle like Distracted, the difficulty of evading incoming attacks is *increased* by 3. Effort allows you to expend resources to compensate for or take extra advantage of the Assets provided by these tactical choices.
The top row of UI is the Effort Type selection. You can pick between "Accuracy" (which represents likelihood to succeed at a task) or "Damage" (which increases the amount of damage done with an attack *if* successful). Each level of Effort applied to Accuracy reduces the difficulty of the task by 3. Each level applied to Damage increases the total damage by 3, but if used while the chance of success is low, could be a riskier choice. On the other hand, if smart tactics have given you a good chance to hit, pumping up Damage can turn the tide of a fight.
The second row is for selecting the Stat pool from which the cost of Effort is drawn. For many tasks there is only one option but for others you may be able to choose between two or even all three pools. The first level of Effort costs 3 points from the chosen pool, and each additional level costs 2.
The third row is the most important. It allows you to select how much Effort to apply to the task. In C0, Aligern and the Last Castoff can only apply 1 level per task, but Callistege has already taken an upgrade for Tier 2, meaning she can apply up to 2 levels of Effort. You can also clear any Effort you've selected by clicking the pip labeled "0." As you mouse over and select Effort pips, the difficulty updates accordingly.
Applying Effort is optional. At any time you can press the big "check mark" button to attempt the Task. The button to the right of that is the "Sudden Inspiration" feature, which allows you use Discovery Points to automatically succeed at key tasks without spending Effort. The cost in DP depends on the difficulty of the task.
Crisis Gameplay Video
There are several more gameplay elements to discuss (possibly in later updates), but this should give you a sense of how to play out a Crisis. Beyond the specific mechanics, the Crisis in C0 has been handcrafted to react to your playstyle in believable, interesting ways. I strongly recommend trying the encounter out a few times, taking a different approach in each playthrough. Even simple decisions like which enemy to take out first can trigger different chains of events through the scripting and AI we've created.
If you want a taste of that variety without playing through C0 (or if you don't have Alpha access), you can check out the video we've made that highlights just a few of these outcomes.
[video=youtube;WU-Hi7xHnSk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU-Hi7xHnSk[/video]
There are even more options than what are shown in that video. We'll leave those to our Alpha backers to discover for themselves!
Until next time,
Jeremy Kopman
Lead Crisis Designer
Ah, the Crisis system. Well, we'll see. Torment's combat was the weak point of the first game, perhaps these guys can do better. Going to be tough to beat the "focus fire on one guy, swap and repeat" technique that tends to make turn based so predictable and repetitive.
Oh, wait! I just checked and I can talk about it!
So, yeah, it -is- the most boring part of the game I've played. Multiple reasons, all of which may change.
That said, it's not terrible, just a little dull. And the talk-people-out-of-fighting thing is cool.
Oh, wait! I just checked and I can talk about it!
So, yeah, it -is- the most boring part of the game I've played. Multiple reasons, all of which may change.
That said, it's not terrible, just a little dull. And the talk-people-out-of-fighting thing is cool.
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Gonna take that with a grain of salt, knowing your opinion of turn-based combat
I...don't think you do know that, then.
One of more than half a dozen or so actually.
The lead writer still is Colin McComb.
kickstarter.com/projects/numenerastrand/numenera-strand/posts/1441166Update #33
Blu-rays and DVDs shipping!
Aaaaand, here we go! Blu-rays and DVD:s are shipping to our amazing backers!! Some of you might be getting them sooner than others. Domestic backers (Sweden) might already have the film spinning non stop in their BD player! International backers, the packages are on the move! We're doing everything we can to get them to you as quickly as possible so that you may partake in the retina feast that is Numenéra: Strand!
/Joan & The Numenéra Strand Team
Blu-Ray + DVD
Now if inXile, Monte Cook Games and the creators of the short film could work something out to make this (digitally) available to backers of TToN as well.
Torment: Tides of Numenera Update #50: A Sneak Peek at the Beta, Backer NPCs, and News
TL; DR: status update, new screenshot, George on backer NPCs, forum badge
Hello Exiles,
Chris here. Our team is continuing to work hard on getting the Beta Test ready to deliver to you. Torment is in that exciting stage where things are coming together rapidly, and it's been amazing over the last few months to see so many elements of the game take shape. We want to continue cleaning up some rough edges so that you can have the best experience possible. For that reason, we are planning to release the Torment Beta Test early next year so we can deliver a more polished and complete Beta Test.
We know that you have been waiting for this, and we want to get the game to you as soon as we can, but we felt that the Beta version we could bring you would be that much better with a little more time in development. We appreciate your patience.
We were quite happy with the release of the Alpha Systems Test, in that it allowed us to collect useful feedback on even the smallest elements of the game. We want the Beta Test to be a continuation of that level of collaboration with our community, while also being a great first hands-on impression for Torment. And this is going to be a legitimate hands-on. While the Alpha Systems Tests could be finished in around 20 minutes, the upcoming Beta release will contain over 10 hours of gameplay on a normal playthrough.
While we're working on that, we wanted to share some more info on the game and give you a sneak peek at some of the things you might see in the Beta...
The Order of Truth
We've given you a few glimpses of Sagus Cliffs before. Sagus Cliffs fills a similar role to the Hive in Planescape: Torment, serving as a central city hub in the eary stages and allowing for lots of exploration and deep world-building.
Now, we'd like to share a closer look at the Order of Truth, one of the factions in Sagus Cliffs. Below is a glimpse of their headquarters.
From George Ziets:
The Order of Truth is dedicated to the study of numenera – artifacts of long-dead civilizations that inhabited Earth millions of years ago. Its adherents, known as Aeon Priests, have established enclaves throughout much of the known world. In the city of Sagus Cliffs, far from the lands where the Order arose, the Aeon Priests are few, and not all of them share the high principles of their distant brethren.
Fortunately for them, Sagus Cliffs sits atop a massive trove of numenera, layer upon layer of ancient cities and long-forgotten technologies, waiting to be unearthed. The local headquarters of the Order is inside an ancient starship, abandoned countless millennia in the past and locked in the accumulated sediments of the ages.
Backer NPCs
Ziets here. As backers of our Kickstarter campaign, you probably know that certain pledge levels unlocked the ability to design content for our game – an item (or item description), a monument, or an NPC. In this update, I'm going to talk about the NPCs that were created by our backers... and how we integrated them into our world.
So what does it mean to create a backer NPC for TTON? If you pledged at the backer NPC level, we asked you to provide a name and description for your character, as well as a preference as to where your NPC should appear in the game (e.g., Sagus Cliffs, the Bloom) and what role they should fill (e.g., merchant, cultist, traveler). As TTON has some rather dark moments, we also asked whether you'd mind if we did terrible things to your NPC. Some of our backers provided that basic information and nothing more, while others took advantage of our "Additional Notes" section to tell us about their characters' backstory, motivations, or the reasons their character was important to them. By the time we hit the submission deadline, we'd received about 55 backer NPCs.
Incorporating 55 backer-created NPCs into the game was a challenge, especially because we set high standards for ourselves. It was important to us that backer NPCs feel indistinguishable from other NPCs in the game and be integrated seamlessly into our quest and exploration content. (The quality of NPC submissions was high, which helped a lot. Backers clearly put a great deal of effort into making their NPCs feel creative, weird, and "Tormenty," so most of them fit easily into our setting.)
As I designed Sagus Cliffs, I kept a list of the backer NPCs for that zone close at hand. When I devised a quest and needed characters to fill important roles, I took a look at the list. Sometimes I wouldn't find any backer NPCs that would suit my needs, but often I did.
For example, early in the game, one way of solving a quest results in an optional combat with a rather powerful creature. Players can try to defeat the creature alone, but that will be extremely challenging, so an alternative is to find a few NPC allies in town who'd be up for a fight... and convince them to help. I'd originally planned to create these NPCs myself, but I then found three excellent backer NPCs to fill the roles instead. One of these potential recruits is Aidan Sitabo, a mysterious martial artist, capable of moving at speeds that defy human capability. Players can convince this man to assist them in their fight against the creature. They can also attempt to match their abilities against his and discover the secret of how he gained his abilities. His dialogue (written by Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie) is pretty entertaining, and even if players don't choose to ask for his help, they can still gain interesting insights and rewards by talking to him.
Other times, when I was designing a particularly weird place, I'd look through the list of backer NPCs for characters who fit the general tone of the location, and I'd add them as one-off characters. Such characters provide some interesting dialogue, usually a reward or two that can be gained by uncovering their secrets, and sometimes a significant (or horrific) choice the player can make. In the Fifth Eye, a tavern that draws powerful psychics and interdimensional travelers like a lodestone, one example of a backer NPC is Almas the Soul Keeper, the last survivor of an interdimensional race who carries the souls of his entire species in his mind.
In a few cases, a backer NPC's story lent itself so well to a quest that I ended up designing a side quest around them. This was a boon to the overall design, as most scenes can always profit from an extra quest or two. For example, one backer sent us an NPC called Omahdon, an enigmatic traveler with considerable knowledge of the numenera who is on a search for his missing "one true love." This seemed an obvious seed for a quest, so I placed him in the Caravanserai district of Sagus Cliffs, and linked his quest to another important NPC in that scene. I was also able to connect his story to the Valley of Dead Heroes, and to use his quest to augment some of the other content in Caravanserai.
These backer NPCs – and all the rest of them – should feel like a natural part of the game, and we hope that you don't even notice a difference between them and the NPCs that we've created ourselves. I think they've enriched our world, and I hope you enjoy them.
Ziets out.
I ninja'd Hannes. My day is complete.
Well, can't keep eyes on and track of everything all the time, and especially not if one gets (Un)de(r)railed.
In case you're already planning to steam-roll through TToN with a no-prisoners-, shoot-first-ask-questions-later-type character, Underrail might actually be a good alternative to the TToN Alphas and the upcoming Beta for getting accustomed to turn-based combat that relies on dodging and evading instead of being able to take cover behind things.
In case you're already planning to steam-roll through TToN with a no-prisoners-, shoot-first-ask-questions-later-type character, Underrail might actually be a good alternative to the TToN Alphas and the upcoming Beta for getting accustomed to turn-based combat that relies on dodging and evading instead of being able to take cover behind things.
kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1459003Update #51
Updated Our Journal (51): De-Cyphering the Beta Release Date
TL;DR: Road to Beta, and Item Design with Thomas
Hello Exiles, Brian Fargo here.
Here we are in 2016, 17 years after the original Planescape Torment hit the scene and became a cult classic. This is finally the year for the spiritual successor to become a reality. I’m proud to tell you that Torment: Tides of Numenera Beta will be coming to all eligible backers during the week of January 17th and to Steam Early Access on the 26th of January. The team is incredibly passionate about this game and it shows in every aspect of their work. Having the opportunity to create a wholly original experience and intricate world is exactly why we got in the games business to begin with.
The beta will start you right in the beginning of the game and is quite lengthy for an early beta. It covers the game's introductory sequence (some of which you may have already seen a portion of in the alpha) as well as most of the first major location of the game, Sagus Cliffs. Sagus is a very old city that was built on top of ancient structures that predate the return of humanity to the Ninth World. It's split into five main districts: Circus Minor, Cliff's Edge, Caravanserai, Government Square and the Underbelly. As you might expect from a city location, it is rich in lore to discover, characters to talk with and obviously quests to complete!
Of course, we'll be looking to gather your feedback and use it to improve the game. During the alpha, we had a direct feedback form in the game and we'll likely provide that again, as it turned out to be an excellent way for us to gather feedback in a way that was easy for us to parse and implement. Indeed, many points from alpha feedback informed our design decisions during beta production, iteration is after all key to making our games. I look forward to gathering more unique insights from this release.
In a future update we'll talk more about the details of the beta release, but during the lead-up to the beta we will be providing you with new information on what it contains such as profiles of individual locations and discussion of characters and game mechanics. Keep an eye out in coming weeks for updates, starting with today's setting and design details.
Brian Fargo
Your leader inXile
The Unusual Items of the Ninth World
Thomas here.
Numenera is a setting known for its incredibly strange, quirky, and interesting items, which are a perfect fit for Torment. So when I was offered the chance to take ownership of item design, I jumped to it. For most items, I come up with the concept, determine what exactly it should do gameplay-wise, implement them into the game, write descriptions, work with scripters on any custom events that might be required, and coordinate with our art team on the icon, animation, visual, and finally work to layer in any sound effect needs. While a number of items come from level designers or the suggestions of writers, some were directly from backers, and many others I designed from scratch.
For inspiration, I turn primarily to the Numenera Corebook and Technology Compendium, but most importantly I take time out weekly to play Planescape: Torment and pore over that game's item lists. Even to this day, PS:T stands out to me as a game with great itemization due to how memorable even the most mundane of items was, and this is something we hope to recreate in Torment: Tides of Numenera. Of course, I'm also constantly jotting down ideas as I consume science fiction or fantasy novels and films. The Numenera setting has the flexibility to allow for many different types of items, from the organic, to the "magical", to the impossibly high tech, a latitude we are fully exploring in the game.
As a quick refresher: items are split into ordinary items – swords, armor, and things people can craft with a medieval level of technology; and Numenera – remnants of the prior civilizations, technology so advanced as to seem like magic. These numenera are further split into Oddities, Artifacts, or Cyphers.
Oddities have no apparent practical use, but their uniqueness and rarity make them valuable. Examples: A goblet that appears empty even when it has a liquid in it; a synth flower that blooms only in total darkness; a squirming fishlike creature that gibbers constantly in an indecipherable foreign tongue. From a gameplay perspective, most of these exist to be sold to merchants as a source of income, but the Numenera setting allows for us to give them a much more unique and interesting flavor. And some of them can be useful in the right situation.
Artifacts, on the other hand, are numenera objects that do have an use and can typically be held onto permanently. These uses can range from minor boons to major powers. Examples: A cloak made of golden feathers that stiffens to offer protection when struck; a ring that acts as a transdimensional conduit to strike enemies with various damage types; a device that compresses some of an opponent's blood into a projectile which is then sucked out of the target and into the device. These are very rare and valuable, and from a gameplay perspective serve as the equivalent of magic equipment in a more typical fantasy setting.
Cyphers, however, are one of the most unique elements of the item system in Torment. These have no real equivalent in other games, and offer the most interesting design opportunities and challenges. Put simply, Cyphers are one-time-use numenera, somewhat similar to consumable potions, charms and so on in other games. However, Cyphers are also very powerful, and tend to be somewhat unstable as a result, especially when large numbers of them are carried together. Carry a Cypher around by itself and you'll be fine, but if you start taking too many with you, you will run into side-effects that provide negative Fettles (or status effects) on your characters.
As a result, Cyphers are best used quickly, and because they are relatively abundant, you will always be finding new ones throughout the game. By their very nature, Cyphers counter the hoarding instincts that cRPGs have built up over the years. This requires us to communicate the positives and negatives of Cyphers to players, to make sure that that they are interesting enough for players to want to use, and that the density and distribution of Cyphers throughout the game makes players feel like they're getting them at just the right rate. We don't want Cypher limits to feel like an annoyance, but rather to provide a natural flow for the player to experiment with and use them, and keep the progression of items interesting throughout the game.
Cyphers are extremely varied and interesting. A few examples: a detonation device that increases gravity in a confined area, pinning your enemies down; a sentient spike that burrows deeper into any target it hits; a thick red grub that when consumed will greatly enhance your ability to perform certain tasks while inhibiting others; a foam that makes your enemy's armor brittle as glass; a statuette that when pried open releases an entity that is unseen yet provides a tangible presence, healing injuries and alleviating fatigue before phasing into another reality.
As you can probably tell, there is not a lot limiting the nature of Cyphers. They can be consumed to give a passive bonus to a number of skills or stats, such as Might/Speed/Intellect Pools, attack damage, speech skills, armor values versus a variety of damage types, etc. They can be projectiles thrown at enemies or allies for various effects. They can have instant one-time effects or last until the player next rests. They can even be set to trigger themselves when certain conditions are met. They can target one or many characters, or have an area of effect. Their usefulness isn't limited to combat either: though some can only be used in combat, others can be used during exploration and dialog, and some can even be used in both.
From a design perspective, the challenge of crafting numenera is one all too common: it's not hard to have plenty of crazy ideas, but the real work happens in determining what ideas work for this setting and this game. It is important to give each item enough character to stand out while not making them so unique that you create a crowded field of The One True Item. The templates set up by our programmers allow for a very wide variety of interesting items, and our excellent combat designers Jeremy Kopman and Evan Hill can help me with any custom scripting needed.
But the most important step of all happens once the items exist in the game – testing, polish and endless iteration to get them perfect for our backers. The Beta Test won't feature every last item in Sagus Cliffs – we're still working on the game after all – but it will contain a great cross-section of mundane items, Oddities, Artifacts and Cyphers for you to use and experiment with. We look forward to seeing your feedback once you get a chance to try them out.
Shout-Outs
As usual, we want to highlight a few more ongoing crowdfunding projects.
First up, you should check out the big news from Lone Shark Games and Monte Cook Games. The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera is a brand new board game from the designers that brought folks the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Smash Up, and other fantastic games. This is a new type of game that's one part deckbuilder, one part Eurogame, and one part RPG, all set a billion years in the future. You can play Jacks, Nanos, and Glaives all competing to see who can be the boldest adventurer in the strangest world. The game has already met its funding goal, but you can help get cool new locations to adventure, new characters, and new components. The Kickstarter ends January 15th, so hop on it!
Next, our buddies at Double Fine are back to crowdfunding with a long anticipated title: Psychonauts 2. It's been ten years since the original unique platform-adventure cult hit, and people have been clamoring for a sequel. Now with all our help they can finally deliver! They are raising funds on Fig (where Brian is a part of the advisory board), meaning you can support as an investor or as a backer. As of this writing they're tantalizingly close (97%) to hitting their goal, we're hoping to see them run past it in their final week.
We're now entering what's promising to be a very exciting year for Torment and inXile. We were honored to see our game listed on the most anticipated crowdfunded titles on Red Bull, as well as Rock Paper Shotgun's most exciting RPGs of 2016 and USgamer's top games they are looking forward to in 2016. The Torment Beta Test will be our first step towards hitting these high expectations, we hope you'll be there with us for the ride!
Thomas Beekers
Associate Producer/Designer
I spoiled myself with Wasteland 2 beta and it did have a bad effect in the final game, so I think I'll force my self to stay out this time around.
Yep. My rule is - stay away from alphas and betas of adventures and RPGs, unless developers really need help with testing and you are in some special position to help them.
It will. I pledged so much during the KS campaign that I almost feel obligated to check if there's something I really want to give a critical comment on in hopes for it to get fixed, but then again.... A solid first impression (without any feelings of "let's rush this part because I've seen it already") of the final game is something one can not get but once.
I'm torn...
kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/posts/1459315Update #52
Updated Our Journal (52): More Music from Mark Morgan
tl;dr: New song from Mark, Circus Minor screenshot and details
Hello everyone,
Chris here. Last week, we announced the timeframe for the Torment Beta Test as well as the Early Access release shortly thereafter (as a reminder, that's the week of the 17th for backers, and Early Access on the 26th). The reception we received has been amazing, and it's clear that both backers and new fans alike are interested in getting their first look at the new Torment. Today, we have part two of our "Road to Beta" series, where we're debuting some new information on the beta content.
As a reminder to our backers who do not have access to the Beta Test, but want to join it: we still have the Beta Test Access add-on available on the Torment web site. If you are interested, just log into your account. When you do, you will see a widget on the web site which provides links and instructions on how to add it to your account. Your Beta Test key will be made available when it goes live the week of the 17th.
Look for the Beta Test Status widget when logged into the Torment site to see if you're ready!
New Music Track - Sagus Cliffs Exterior
As many of you know, we have worked with famed videogame composer Mark Morgan for several years now on both Torment as well as Wasteland 2. Mark is of course known for his soundtracks to Fallout 1 and 2, but he was also the composer for the iconic soundtrack to Planescape: Torment.
Our collaboration with Mark has produced some amazing music which maintains, but also matures the spirit of Torment, and today we want to debut a brand-new song from him, which you will hear as you explore the exterior environments of Sagus Cliffs.
A Look at Circus Minor
Adam here. As we mentioned in our last update, the city of Sagus Cliffs is divided up into districts. The first one that you will come across is called Circus Minor.
Circus Minor is the vibrant heart of Sagus Cliffs, a bustling combination of festival and marketplace. When public events (or executions) are held, they always take place among the crowds and merchant stalls for all to see. Circus Minor is essentially a middle-class district, but all the classes mingle here, along with artists, performers, visitants, and other strange characters.
Circus Minor is a lively place, with merchant stalls, tents and caravans lining its streets, and banners floating in the breeze above. Greenery is more commonplace here than in the other districts.
Yet there is mystery to be found. Pieces of ancient numenera jutting out from the ground are decorated and repurposed by the inhabitants. Some serve as streetlights, others have been turned to other uses, but the original functions of all these ancient constructions are now long-forgotten. And all of these are dominated by the Clock, a giant numenera artifact towering above the district, endlessly ticking away, existing within different dimensions and time periods simultaneously.
Circus Minor serves as an introduction to Sagus Cliffs, and as such, it is a relatively non-hostile place, with many interesting characters to speak to and strange and wonderful things to find. Many important quests and details about the world can be found here, and the Last Castoff will return to it plenty of times while exploring Sagus Cliffs' other districts.
Adam out.
Shout-Outs & News
We've got a new Kickstarter project we'd like to highlight for you this week. Titled Project Resurgence, and labeled as a "new old school cRPG", the game claims to draw many links with top-down classics like Arcanum, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and more. The team has experience working on many golden-age RPGs, and has some old Interplay alumni on board (along with fresh talent). If that sounds up your alley, we invite you to take a look – they have only just launched but are already well on their way to their $160,000 goal.
Second, Adam Heine and Colin McComb were featured for a Torment-themed interview in the latest issue of CypherCaster Magazine. If you are interested in this Cypher System-oriented mag, you can find that issue here.
Thank you for joining us. We'll be back soon with more as we continue to put the finishing touches on the Torment Beta Test!
Until next time,
Chris Keenan
The Closer