1/28/99

Last week Torment took a major step towards its completion - although that is still quite a while away. Last week we reached a critical milestone that had been dangling in front of us for quite some time. We finished a three level area of the game and brought it to a point where you can actually sit down with it and play. We had made it a point to have most elements of the game in this milestone, including things like automaps, the journal, inventory handling, spell screen handling and so on. Of course the implementation of the story itself was also on the list of things that needed to be finished for this milestone. When we finished the milestone we finally had something in our hands that felt like a game. After almost two years of work on the project, we finally came to the point where we could start up the Torment executable and it looked, felt and sounded like our game. All the interface art is there, all the NPCs are there, doing their thing and reacting to you. The first puzzle is in there and, hell, it felt great when the first of the game's NPCs joined the player's party. We felt strong relief, not only because we had achieved our milestone according to schedule, but also because after months of exhausting work, we were finally able to appreciate all the work we had done and see it come to life on the computer screen. Even Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO, took a copy of the game home over the weekend to play with it and gave us his feedback first thing Monday morning. It is very satisfying to see the project take shape and see the kind of enthusiastic response it triggers in literally everyone who has set his eyes on the game. I know what you're about to ask. When will you see the game? Can we give out this three level milestone as a demo to you gamers? I am afraid, the answer is not exactly what you'd like to hear, but let me explain to you why that is not possible at this point in time. We cannot release the version of the game at this point because although it is playable, it is far from being perfect. It is a demonstration that everything we tried to do with the engine and the game is working. It is a demonstration that our scripting language is working properly and that behaviour patterns can be programmed the way we wanted them to be. It also shows that some of the changes and improvements we did to the Baldur's Gate engine are in fact feasible and enhance the gaming experience. The game still crashes a lot, though, and there are certain things you just should not do... If we released this version of the game in a demo, the impression the public would get from this would be really bad. Few people have actually seen and experienced how unfinished games look or feel, or how they behave for that matter. It's like a rough cut of a movie. It's all there, but it's nothing you want to show people and it is by no means polished. To polish this demo to the point that we could actually release it as a playable demo would require us to put a lot of time into it. Time we currently don't have because we feel it is more important at this point to keep the ball rolling while spirits are high and everyone is so enthused about what we just achieved. It is a critical phase that will allow us to get more done than at any other time. For that matter we have decided to put a fully playable demo version of the game on hold for now, until we can safely work on it without jeopardizing the actual project schedule. I am sure you all understand this. Believe me, I would love to give you all a glimpse of Torment - if only to hear your reactions and thoughts. Guido Henkel Project Director

Planescape: Torment & Design: © 1998 Interplay Productions. All Rights Reserved. © 1998 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Planescape, the Planescape logo, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Torment, the AD&D logo, and the TSR logo are trademarks of TSR, Inc. and are used by Interplay under license. TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Interplay, the Interplay logo, Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Productions. Exclusively licensed and distributed by Interplay Productions. All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners.