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Planescape: Torment

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"Nameless One" redirects here. For the DC or Marvel comic book characters, see Nameless One (comics).
Planescape: Torment
.
Box cover for the game
Developer(s)Black Isle Studios
Publisher(s)Interplay
Designer(s)Chris Avellone (lead)
Colin McComb
and others[1]
EngineInfinity
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows
ReleaseDecember 12, 1999
Genre(s)Computer role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game that takes place in Planescape, an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The game places emphasis on conversation and storyline instead of combat.

The protagonist (an immortal dubbed The Nameless One) has lived many lives, and forgotten them all. Most of the game focuses on The Nameless One remembering these previous lives, and the profound implications they have had on those around him.

The game sold only about 400,000 copies, [2] but received universal critical praise;[3] and has since become a cult classic. It has been hailed as 1999's best RPG.[4]. The game was later added to Gamespy's "Hall of Fame" in August 2004,[5] and to Gamespot's "Greatest Games of All Time" list in October 2005.[6]

Planescape: Torment has been compared to Baldur's Gate.[7]

Gameplay

The Mortuary room in which the game opens. Visible are two Player characters, a zombie, the bottom-menu, and the radial actions-menu.

Torment is built on the Infinity Engine, which presents the player with a two-dimensional world, in which protagonist characters are controlled from an isometric perspective. Exploration around the painted scenery is accomplished by clicking on the ground to move, or on objects and characters to interact with them. Items and spells may be employed through hotkeys, "quick slots," or a radial menu. The player may recruit adventuring companions over the course of the game. While there are seven potential members, only a maximum of five may accompany him at any point.

The complex and storyline-based nature of the game means that gameplay often focuses on resolution of quest and story objectives through selection from available dialogue choices, rather than combat. Simply stopping and having a long (often very long) chat with one of the other members of the player's group can often advance the game more (and reveal more surprising things) than hours of combat and questing in other games. In fact, there are only four or so required combat encounters within the game, while contemporary role-playing games have tens or hundreds. All other encounters can be resolved or avoided through dialogue or stealth.

Planescape: Torment is notable for the quality and quantity of textual dialogue it contains. It is estimated that the game's script contains around 800,000 words.[8] A review in the New York Times noted that, "The game's level of detail and its emotional impact have prompted some players to cast about for literary peers."[9]

Plot

The game begins with the protagonist, known only as The Nameless One, waking up with total amnesia. He soon finds out that he is immortal; if he is killed, he will simply reawaken in the same body. He sets out on a quest to regain his lost memories, and discover why he is immortal. As the game progresses, he slowly remembers events from his many previous lives. He discovers much about the personalities of his previous incarnations, and the great influence they have had in the worlds and people that surround him.

After traveling through many Planescape oddities and wonders, such as a pregnant alleyway, two of the Lady of Pain's Mazes, Avernus (the first layer of Baator), and Carceri (the prison plane of thieves and liars), he finally discovers why he is immortal. His original incarnation had committed a grave evil and believed that more than one lifetime was needed to atone. So, he sought out the powerful night hag, Ravel Puzzlewell, and asked her to make him immortal. Ravel granted him immortality, but made a mistake: his death and resurrection would cause the loss of all his memories. His mortality now exists as a separate entity in the Fortress of Regrets, from where it attempts to prevent The Nameless One's reincarnations to find the truth.

Subplots

Most of the game content resides on text based subplots. They help the player understand the setting and gain insight into the backgrounds of the characters.

The background of "Morte" is a good example of such a subplot. Morte is a floating skull that accompanies The Nameless One from the beginning of the game. Several times in the game, it is hinted that Morte is hiding something about his origins. The protagonist might even find a message of a previous incarnation urging caution against the skull. If the player pays attention to these hints, he might use them to press Morte, and find out that his companion used to be attached to the Pillar of Skulls in Avernus, in punishment for having told a lie that caused someone's death. Telling this to someone seems to be a relief to Morte.

The player can also help quite a few victims of the oddities of the planes. There is, for example, a woman who has been lost since her childhood, because she could not find a portal home. In her search, she has gone through many portals, only to arrive in inhospitable and dangerous locations. She not only lost hope of returning home, but also got so afraid of portals that she decided never to leave a certain square of Sigil, in fear of going through one accidentally. If the player stops to listen to her, he´ll be able help her find her way home.

Themes

The key philosophical theme of the work is presented as a question several times: "what can change the nature of a man?". This question considers the possibility (or impossibility) of changing fate; many characters in Torment are fighting against their natures, or against what seems to be an inevitable fate. One example is Nordom, who, despite being a modron (a hive-minded species) is developing a personality of his own.

Selfishness is also a very present theme. The Nameless One has, in previous incarnations, been so committed to understanding his condition that he has been willing to sacrifice everything and everyone on that quest. Many consequences of this can be discovered through the game.

One idea that presents itself many times during the game is consensus reality—if enough people believe in something, then it is real, and begins to exist. For example, when people ask The Nameless One his name, one of the choices of response is to lie that it is "Adahn". If the player tells enough people that this is his name, a man named Adahn will appear in a certain location, claiming to be an old friend, even though he never existed before. Another example is a recovered memory of a past event in which the Nameless One apparently debates a man out of existence. Also, the Githzerai make their home in Limbo, the plane of chaos, using collective belief to shape their cities.

Torment shares many themes with its setting, Planescape.

Production

According to lead designer Chris Avellone, Planescape: Torment has numerous inspirations from a variety of books, comics, and games. Notable works among them include Archie Comics, The Chronicles of Amber, The Elementals, Final Fantasy, and Shadowrun.[6]

The designers intended to turn many RPG conventions on their head: the game features no dragons, elves or goblins, and only three swords. The main quest is not about saving the world, but about understanding the Nameless One and his immortality. Death (of the protagonist or his companions) is often just a minor hindrance, and can even be useful at times.

Magic was an important part of the game's design, and a team of four designers worked on the visuals and mechanics of spells.[10]

The game inherits from the Planescape D&D setting "the Cant", a slang inspired in 17th century coloquial speech.[11]

On St. Patrick's day and Easter of 2000, the developers released a pair of humorous character modifications — one that changed the outfit of the character Annah from a mottled bodice to a revealing, leprechaun-themed set of undergarments, and Morte from a skull into a levitating easter egg.

On 2001, a collector's edition of the game, entitled Memorial Box, was released. It contains a set of collector's cards and a poster.

Project Director/Producer Guido "Guy" Henkel left Interplay a few months before the game was published.[12]

Soundtrack

Industrial/Dark ambient musician Lustmord was hired by Interplay to create the musical score for the game, which was not used in the end.[13]

"Planescape: Torment - The Soundtrack"; an unofficial promotional soundtrack album by Mark Morgan and Richard Band for Planescape: Torment, was released in Poland by CD Projekt, as a bonus to purchasers of the game. It contains several tracks not included in the game, including two ending themes that did not appear in the game's final version. A 38th bonus track (the game credits music) was released from the unofficial community fansite.

Adaptations

A book based loosely on the game was released.[14] The book's plot, however, is greatly different. For instance, in the game the main character is not anonymous but lacks a proper name entirely. This is an indication of his broken nature and ties into the central theme of identity.[citation needed] In the book the main character's just chooses a name. Fan reactions to the novel have been generally negative.[citation needed].These differences may have appeared because the game's script was not completely finalized at the time of the book's writing.[citation needed]

An unofficial novelisation based more closely on actual game dialogue was completed by RPG author Rhyss Hess.[15]

There are two user-created sequels, In The Footsteps of Dante [16] and The Nature of a Man [17]. They are modules for Neverwinter Nights.

Translations

Torment has been translated to several languages by fans and enthusiasts. A full translation into Hungarian[18] took over four years to develop. The Italian Translation Project took about 15 months translating 1.4 million words in 68,510 dialog sentences.[19] A Korean translation was completed as a one-man effort.[citation needed]) A Spanish translation by Clan Dlan, an RPG fan group, was reviewed and reported to be on a professional level.[20] A full Polish translation took almost a year and is considered to be of a very high quality by the Polish gamer community due to its attention to detail, skillful transliteration of the cockney of the game's underclass, and little inside jokes understandable to Poles.[citation needed] A Mandarin version was translated and published by Interwise Inc. in Taiwan in 2001. [21]

References to other works

  • Some text found within the game's files (but not within the game itself) indicates that The Nameless One once used the name of Bigby, a mage from Greyhawk, a D&D setting[22]
  • The Festhall's public sensorium has a reference to Kafka's Metamorphosis; the sensory stone titled 'complete bafflement' depicts the experience of a bug waking up to find that it has become a human.
  • A zombie in the Mortuary recites part of a poem by Li Shangyin, a poet of the late Tang Dynasty period of China.
  • There are several magical items in the game that are anime references. Ring Zero, for example, has a description heavily referential to the Gundam Wing series.
  • One of the Chaosmen in the Tenement of Thugs can be overheard reciting a line from Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sounds of Silence".
  • On the second floor in the Tenement of Thugs, the player finds three nuclear barrels, a reference to the Fallout series. The first two Fallout games had the same developer and publisher as Planescape: Torment.

References in other works

  • The game Baldur's Gate II has an optional quest which involves a group of actors from Sigil. Some rare magical items related to Planescape: Torment can also be purchased from a special merchant (such as Dak'kon's Zerth Blade or Vhailor's Helm).

References

  1. ^ Full credits for Planescape: Torment at MobyGames
  2. ^ "Scott Warner on Planescape figures". 2003-08-25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Overview over Planescape: Torment reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-05-29.
  4. ^ Harding, Chris (24 December 1999). "Planescape: Torment". Adrenaline Vault. p. 2. Retrieved 2008-12-08. A number of other added features turn a good RPG into 1999's best.
  5. ^ Rausch, Allan (August 19 2004). "Gamespy Hall of Fame: Planescape: Torment". Retrieved 2006-07-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b Park, Andrew (October 10 2005). "Gamespot Presents: The Greatest Games of All Time". Retrieved 2006-07-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Carr, Diane (2006). "5: Space, Navigation, and Affect". Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play. Polity. p. 59. ISBN 978-0745634005. Planescape Torment has much in commmon with Baldur's Gate. The games were both developed by Black Isle Studios, and they share a publisher (Interplay), as well as a games engine (BioWare's Infinity Engine). {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ PC Gamer UK July 2004 (Issue 137), pages 104-105.
  9. ^ Schiesel, Seth (2000-04-27). "A Universe Where Ideas Can Trump Actions". New York Times.
  10. ^ "Planescape: Torment Preview". ignvault. 1999. p. 3. Retrieved 2008-12-08. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  11. ^ "Planescape Cantweb". Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  12. ^ "http://planescape.outshine.com/official.planescape-torment.org/oldnews/guido_0827.html". Retrieved 2008-12-05. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  13. ^ L U S T M O R D
  14. ^ Vallese, Ray and Valerie (1999). Torment: a Novelization. Renton, Wash.; London: Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 0-7869-1527-7.
  15. ^ Planescape: Torment - Novelization
  16. ^ "In The Footsteps of Dante". Retrieved 2008-09-12.}}
  17. ^ "The Nature of a Man". Retrieved 2008-09-12.}}
  18. ^ PeteRPG_rpg-adnd-torhu
  19. ^ ITP Team.org - Traduzioni di Videogiochi
  20. ^ Traducción de Planescape: Torment - Traducciones de videojuegos, mods, revisiones, guías, rol y más. - Clan DLAN
  21. ^ http://store.gomy.com.tw/1307/showcat.asp?G_Category=116
  22. ^ Unimplemented Files. Platter's Miscellaneous Torment Crap. Retrieved on 2008-05-26
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