Torment: Tides of Numenera

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a video game developed by inXile Entertainment. Patrick Rothfuss worked on the game as a writer.

Background and General Information

Torment: Tides of Numenera
General information
Product	Video Game
Designer(s)	Adam Heine, Colin McComb, George Ziets
Country	United States
Production
Production company	inXile Entertainment
Release date	February 28, 2017

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a fantasy role-playing game that takes place in Numenera, a fantasy campaign setting created by designer Monte Cook; specifically, it takes place in the Ninth World. A spiritual successor to the 1999 classic Planescape: Torment, the game placed similar emphasis on "rich, personal narrative." Players assume the role of the Last Castoff, a human host once inhabited by a powerful being who has been abandoned without memory of prior events.

The game's Kickstarter campaign was, at the time, the most successful in history, taking in $4 million against the $900,000 originally envisioned.

The game released on February 28th, 2017.

Patrick Rothfuss

At the 2012 GenCon, Patrick Rothfuss met designer Colin McComb. The two admitted they were fans of each others' works, with Rothfuss placing particular emphasis on Planescape: Torment. In November of that year, McComb offered Rothfuss a writing position on the game; though intrigued, Rothfuss turned down the offer due to scheduling reasons. This nevertheless led McComb to join an episode of "The Story Board" in which he announced that the game would be launching on Kickstarter the next day.

Rothfuss created and wrote Rhin.

Rothfuss, meanwhile, had been struggling to write a story for the George RR Martin-Gardner Dozois anthology Rogues. A meeting with author Sam Sykes inspired him to have "fun," which resulted in Rothfuss very quickly and efficiently writing The Lightning Tree. Realising that this allowed him to better work on The Doors of Stone and following encouragement from editor Betsy Wollheim, Rothfuss contacted McComb on March 18th, 2013, and was added to the project as a stretch goal, where he would create and write a companion character. During meetings and early interviews, Rothfuss enthusiastically expressed his interest in the narrative possibilities of video games.

Rothfuss's character was eventually revealed to be named Rhin, a child who claims that the rocks in her pockets are gods.

Rothfuss also wrote a 12-page digital comic for the game; it was provided to Kickstarter backers and entitled, "So Long as You Can See the Moon." Rothfuss's frequent collaborator Nate Taylor illustrated the comic.