Game Development Giant

As for what is wrpg.

In fact, in the previous description, for the sake of simplicity, accurate vocabulary was not used to express it.

For example, there are two types of RPGs.

One is called jrpg, which is Japanese-style rpg, and j means Japan.

The other is American RPG. This term is inaccurate, or inaccurate, because there is no such word as American RPG. The term for this game type should be wrpg.

The full name is western-rpg, which is Western-style rpg. It can also be called European and American rpg. However, because the contribution of Europeans to this type of game is basically negligible, many people, or the vast majority of people, like to use western-rpg. Wrpg is directly called American rpg.

In addition to Black Island, there is another company that I have to mention.

interplay.

Before Black Island disbanded, Brian Fargo and Matthew Vanderlee, two well-known figures in the American RPG field, left Interplay and established a company in 2002 that focused on developing RPG games called Inxile Entertainment. .

The dormant period of this company is longer than that of Obsidian. In fact, their most famous work for a long time is the 2004 game Ice City Legend which tells the story of a rebellious and humorous bard. Due to its unique selection, With its challenging themes and interesting gameplay, the game drew widespread acclaim—but then the entire company fell silent. They have developed a few iOS/Flash games and a DS game, but other than that they haven't made much noise.

In 2012, three crowdfunding game projects were launched on Qingfan.com, one for Obsidian and two for Inxile. For a long time, they became the top three projects with the highest crowdfunding amount on ks.

Obsidian Entertainment's crowdfunding project is codenamed Project Eternity, and the final crowdfunding amount is nearly US$4 million (3.98 million). The final result of this plan is an old-school to incredible RPG game Pillars of Eternity. This game was released in 2015. In fact, this game did not use the copyright of dnd due to licensing issues. However, this is really a dnd game with no more dnd style.

It can be played as Baldur's Gate 3.

In fact, Professional is really an American RPG that can give full marks.

The first project of inxile-entertainment is Wasteland 2, with a final crowdfunding amount of nearly 3 million (2.93 million). The second project is Misery: Tides of Numera, which is still under development. Now. The crowdfunding amount has exceeded 4 million.

Wasteland 2 is the official sequel to the 1988 classic RPG Wasteland. The producers of Wasteland and Wasteland 2 are Brian Fargo, the founder of Inxile Entertainment. Therefore, whether it is the ks review page or the Wasteland 2 purchase page on Steam, many people mentioned their unforgettable experience of playing Wasteland on Apple computers when they were children.

If you don’t know how emotional the game “Wasteland” is, I can give you an example like this.

This game is the teacher of Fallout, and you can clearly know what position this game occupies in the history of American RPGs.

The game Pillars of Eternity, in terms of production lineup, is almost a reappearance of Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment - and Obsidian has always been promoting it during crowdfunding. In insisting on the connection between this work and these ancient legendary RPGs, in fact, after the game was released. Players found that they really meant what they said - Pillars of Eternity is old-school, hardcore, and full of Baldur's Gate flavor.

You may be wondering how this thing called Torment: Tides of Numera can be more appealing than the emotions of Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate - look at its English name torment : tidesnumenera, and the original name of the masterpiece Planescape: Torment was Planescape: Torment - yes, this is the direct spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment .

certainly. These things just flashed through Jester's mind.

It is never that simple to succeed in crowdfunding. To convince those players to agree to participate in your crowdfunding, even these very appealing and sentimental people cannot do it easily.

Actually. During the crowdfunding promotion stage, these projects encountered a small chaos.

At first, Project Eternal almost appeared as a spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment, because Obsidian's creative director Chris-Avellone was the main designer of Planescape: Torment that year. However, the design temperament of the entire game displayed at the beginning of the project of Tribulation: Tides of Numunera is highly consistent with the Planetary Landscape module of that year. It is a sequel that truly inherits Planet Requiem from the perspective of gameplay content.

Later, as the content was further announced, everyone discovered that the content style of Project Eternity was more inclined to traditional magical themes. Therefore, in subsequent publicity, although Obsidian occasionally mentioned its producers and Foreign Requiem , but most of the time he politely gave the title to this work, emphasizing the similarities between himself and Baldur's Gate.

Of course, as to why Misery: Tides of Numera is said to be the direct spiritual sequel to Planeworld: Torment, but Pillars of Eternity, which was the chief designer of Planescape: Torment, is not, There is a reason for this.

Because the theme of Planetary Requiem back then was basically Planetary Scenery Battle Module.

In order to facilitate players to experience the story, the Dungeons and Dragons series of tabletop games have launched a large number of self-contained world view setting description documents. The more famous one is Dragonlance. This series is well-known for Dragonlance Chronicles. It is one of the favorite settings of early Dungeons and Dragons players and the Forgotten Realms. The story of your beloved dark elf Drizzt takes place here - Neverwinter Nights/Neverwinter City Nights is This mod is the finest video game altering work.

In contrast, Planetscape is relatively niche and heterogeneous - because it is a module that introduces a complex plane system and attaches great importance to the description of philosophy and beliefs. It has some wonderful elements that are difficult to distinguish whether it is science fiction or magic. In the end, development was stopped because it was too obscure and led to a lack of players. This is the root of the philosophical content in the game Planet Requiem.

While developing Misery, Inxile applied for full authorization for another tabletop game setting, Numora.

Numora, which has won awards for the high quality of its setting, is a world setting that mixes science fiction and fantasy styles. It is exactly the same as Planet Landscape in style. Since the author of this setting, Monte Cook, once worked as a game designer at tsr (the former creation and publishing company of DND), after the development of Poseidon ceased, many fans regarded Tides of Numera as the origin of Poseidon. Resurrection and continuation.

Because of this, Misery: Tides of Numera, an adaptation of this rule, is rightly dubbed the successor to Planescape Torment.

Take a look at the naming methods of the two games - torment: tidesnumenera and planescape: torment. They both use the combination of original rule name and suffering, but the order is different. I wonder if it is inxile for the sake of sentiment. Do it intentionally.

Although it seems that among these three works, Inxile has two works and Obsidian has one, but in fact, in order to fully unleash the power of emotion, when the crowdfunding was going quite smoothly, Inxile invited Obsidian to participate in the development of Wasteland 2 Development, and Obsidian readily accepted it - this scene of the two veterans cherishing each other made nostalgic veterans talk about it, and Wasteland 2 also responded to players' expectations in a traditional mode: the old-school game system , old-school stage performance; and old-school wasteland stories - the amount of text is staggering.

When these three games were active on the Kickstarter stage, ks' nostalgic atmosphere almost reached its peak. These three projects echo each other, allowing old players to see the glory of Black Island, as if they have returned to the era of exquisite European and American RPG masterpieces based on trpg ideas - because of this, many people burst into tears The land paid for it.

In Jester's vision, this old American RPG will definitely be eliminated by the world.

In fact, with his efforts, this elimination may be faster.

And it was just like the world he was familiar with.

After this type of old-school American RPG is eliminated, there will inevitably be many nostalgic players who want to play such a game again.

But maybe, because the market for such a game is not big, there are not many fans, and it is difficult to count, there may not be any game companies willing to do it, and those who are willing to do it may be some small studios. They have established projects, but they have not Ability, at this time, the role of crowdfunding comes into play.

Of course, when it comes to game crowdfunding, the last project that cannot be forgotten is.

It's Star Citizen.

When Jester thought of the concept of crowdfunding, it was naturally impossible not to think of such a game or project.

So far, this game has raised 80 million US dollars in crowdfunding, but it still has not come up with anything reliable. Players laugh at it and call it the biggest scam in the history of the game. (To be continued...)