At this point, famed designer Chris Avellone is a de facto member of the team at inXile Entertainment. He took part in the development of Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera (which is still in the works), in both cases after funding stretch goals were hit. And now, with The Bard's Tale IV Kickstarter winding down, he's getting ready to make that run three for three.
As usual, Avellone's participation in Bard's Tale IV is a stretch goal, this time pegged at the $1.9 million mark, which will see him create "an all new dungeon built from the worst things" he can imagine called The Cairn of Horrors. "The Cairn has one purpose," inXile founder Brian Fargo wrote in the latest Kickstarter update, "and that purpose is to kill you."
"If you’re not familiar with Chris, he and I go back together to the mid-90s when he worked on the legendary cRPGs Planescape: Torment (as Lead Designer) and Fallout 2," Fargo explained. "We have very successfully worked with him before on Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, a co-operation that is still ongoing to the joy of both parties!"
Avellone (who, you'll recall, left his "real job" at Obsidian earlier this month) isn't the only potential big-name addition to the design team. At $1.4 million, Numenera creator Monte Cook will create a dungeon of his own, the "RPG Super Team" of Bruce Cordell, Wolfgang Baur, and Sean K. Reynolds will do the same at $1.5 million, and $1.7 million will see Colin McComb, the creative lead on Tides of Numenera, climb on board.
Interestingly, while The Bard's Tale IV was easily funded, it doesn't appear to be the runaway success of its predecessors. Wasteland 2 pulled in more than $2.9 million on a $900,000 goal, and Torment hit nearly $4.2 million while aiming for the same target. The Bard's Tale, on the other hand, surpassed its $1.25 million goal on June 14 but has only moved to $1.36 million in the two weeks since. The campaign still has 11 days remaining but unless the pace picks up dramatically, the Avellone Three-peat will have to wait.
