Torment: Tides of Numenera Interview

Urban Gaming Elite has interviewed a number of inXile developers that are working on Torment: Tides of Numenera, including creative lead Colin McComb, lead area designer George Ziets and design lead Adam Heine. The interview includes some interesting information on the game’s creature designs, the writing team, and the adaptation of the Numenera tabletop rules. It’s well worth a read if you’re interested in the game.

Here’s a couple of excerpts:

Can you tell which creatures from the Numenera setting might make an appearance in the game?

George Ziets: We’re planning to draw Numenera creatures from both the Corebook and the more recently published Bestiary. For example, we recently implemented a quest for the Bloom that revolves around a Decanted a construct that keeps a withered biological head in a little tank on its chest. I can’t reveal the rest of the creatures right now, but in the Bloom zone, the current design includes: 1) one of the abhuman races, 2) a transdimensional hunter, and 3) a crystalline entity. as well as some non-adversarial creatures like the aneen. In the Oasis zone, we’re planning to build a similar set of creatures that fits the local flavor, including one iconic Numenera monster for the desert exterior.

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According to your website, there are 8 writers working on Tides of Numenera. What made you decide to go with such a large team of writers?

Colin: In part it’s because I wanted the opportunity to work with each of them, in part it’s because I wanted to get a broad array of voices to contribute to the project, especially in the early stages when their literary contributions can make the most impact. Now that we’re in a more technical phase and working directly in our tools, we have fewer writers involved. At this stage, those who are need to be able to understand the intricacies of the dialogue tool and writing dialogue specifically for a computer role-playing game, and that’s a pretty steep training curve. It’s also because most of our writers have projects of their own, and can’t devote their attention to the game full time. In practice, the writers we have working most closely with the project are Nathan Long, Adam Heine, George Ziets, and me.

What’s it like working with Patrick Rothfuss?

Colin: It’s incredibly cool. It’s especially neat when my phone rings and I see his name come up on the caller ID. Then I can play it cool and announce casually to my friends, (Oh, hey, it’s Pat Rothfuss.)

More seriously, though, it’s really neat to watch his mind at work and to work through ideas with him. He has a quick, agile mind, and it’s clear that he thinks deeply about his characters and his stories, and he’s always willing to share the benefit of his knowledge. In short: it’s a real pleasure.