Torment: Tides of Numenera Plot and Morality Tidbits

While we wait for the now imminent launch of the Torment: Tides of Numenera Kickstarter, we have a new interview, or rather, a couple of select excerpt from a longer interview that will be published next week, from VG247.

The “tides” system and the plot are the core subjects here:

(Using Numenara, we can say ‘˜What does one life matter?’ You are a person who will be seeking their own answers, but you are surrounded by evidence of people who have done incredible things for the world, incredible things with the universe, and incredible things with reality.

(All of this evidence suggests that these people thought their lives really mattered. So, stacked up against people who could master time, gravity or electro-magnetism, or who could change the very shape of the world, what does your life matter?)

Choice plays a big role in helping the player assess the worth of their character’s life, and the impact they have on the world. We asked the team just how it hoped to make these choices and consequences feel tangible. Their answer blew our mind.

(We don’t to go for a cheap emotional hook here,) McComb replied. (We want to build relationships with our NPCs and we want to build ways that we can track the choices that you make within the game.

(To do that we developed what we call the ‘˜Tides’ system, which is essentially our alignment system. It’s more complex, more nuanced than just ‘˜law versus chaos’. It’s an internal thing that manifests itself through external powers.)

…

To help differentiate each moral Tide, inXile has colour-coded them for ease of reference. Game parameters such as choices and NPC reaction may change if you have ten points in blue, and five points in red for example. The indigo Tide may stand for justice, there could even be another for unity, or one for the end justifying the means.

(Part of the reason we colour-coded these choices is that they don’t have exact analogues in the English language), McComb continued. (Something like the gold tide will be similar to empathy, charity or sacrifice, but at he same time if we called it an ‘˜Empathy Tide’, people would attach all of their pre-conceived notions about what empathy is to that.)