I'm always a little wary of crowdfunding stretch goals. While it's great to see promising projects fly beyond their original scope, those that don't hit their lofty extra targets are always going to leave you wondering what could have been. For instance, Torment: Tides of Numenera raised a mammoth $4,188,927 - the largest amount for any Kickstarter to date - but still didn't hit its ambitious $4.5 million final goal. And that meant players would ultimately miss out on Player Strongholds and "Enhanced Reactivity," whatever that meant.
Except they won't! InXile kept PayPal donations open after their funding drive. And while they still fell short of the needed goal, the team have announced that, through a process that looks an awful lot like fudging the numbers, Torment has achieved all of its stretch targets.
InXile's Thomas Beekers explains where the extra cash has come from: "Our percentage of dropped pledges was way below our estimates, proving yet again that you guys rock! As you may recall, our Lead Tormenter Brian Fargo and superfan Steven Dengler matched pledges between $1M and $3M, adding a total of $200K.
"That money was set aside primarily against failed pledges, but because of your dedication, we can apply enough of it toward our budget – combined with the PayPal totals – so as to have reached $4.5 million."
However it happened, the upshot is player strongholds will be included, as will the aforementioned enhanced reactivity, length and depth, something which Beekers describes as involving "some of our crazier ideas concerning choice and consequence."
Previously, project lead Kevin Saunders explained the concept of Strongholds: "It would be a location in the game that is 'owned' by the PC, but won't be a cozy home – it would be designed to fit the atmosphere of Torment and the setting of the Ninth World of Numenera (examples include an airship or a dimensional pocket). It would be a playable area and would include its own sorts of quests and challenges."
