Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity was one of two old-school RPGs that got a massive injection of cash during the initial gold rush of Kickstarter-funded games. The second was Torment: Tides of Numenera, under development at Wasteland 2 studio inXile. It’s been a while since we saw gameplay, but a new alpha video has fixed that right up.
The game hasn’t changed much in the visual department since we last saw it about this time in 2014, though the graphics aren’t the focus of this clip.
Instead, we get to check out Torment‘s “Crisis” system, explained by lead crisis designer Jeremy Kopman. The core idea is to make resolving NPC encounters more flexible, or as Kopman puts it, providing alternatives to simply “bashing in the brains of your enemies”.
Watching the demonstration, I can’t say it looks much different to your typical turn-based RPG conversation (with fight potential if you select the wrong combination of dialogue options), but it is neat that the designers are trying to add a greater level of interaction with the environment, as opposed to just swapping spells and sword swings.
Alpha Crisis Gameplay — Torment: Tides of Numenera [YouTube]
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