If you ever wanted quantifiable data as to how much old-school RPG fans really liked Planescape: Torment, just look at the Kickstarter for thematically linked follow-up Torment: Tides of Numenera. Within just six hours of inXile's launch, the game had secured its $900,000 target. And the money kept rolling in. The game is currently sat at $1.66 million - although who knows what that total will be by the time this article has been written, published and delivered to your eyeballs. Old-school RPG fans really, really liked Planescape: Torment.
Given that people are hurling fistfuls of dollars at them, inXile have announced the first round of Torment stretch goals. Most of them have already been hit.
Here's what backers have already won:
- $1.2 million: A choice of player gender, which inXile say will effect NPC interactions
- $1.5 million: Two new game writers, Mur Lafferty and Tony Evans, will join the team, and a fourth Torment novella will be written.
At $2 million, Numenera creator Monte Cook will join the writing team, composer Mark Morgan will write more music for the game's additional areas, and a fifth companion NPC will be added. "The Toy is a changing ball of goo: Is it a pet, an abandoned toy, a dangerous weapon? Whatever it is, it responds to the way you treat it by changing its appearance and abilities to reflect what it perceives as your desires. Its ultimate secrets are... well, you'll have to find out."
In addition to the stretch goals, inXile are also collaborating with Obsidian Entertainment to create a Planescape: Torment developer retrospective, featuring many of that game's key designers, including Chris Avellone, Brian Fargo and Feargus Urquhart. The retrospective is an additional reward that will be given to all backers of both Torment: Tides of Numenera and Obsidian's Project Eternity.
