3/8/99

A truly exhausting week is over and a new one is well under way. Many of you might have noticed that I did not do a lot of posting on the message boards lately and some of you might already know, why. I have been on press tour all of last week, presenting "Torment" to some 29 writers all over the country. Some of them had seen the game before in another presentation we did last fall, but for many of them it was their first contact with the game. I took a development build of the game on the road to show everyone what the buzz is all about and - unless some of them have been blatantly lying to my face - I believe everyone loved what they saw. The response we got was very enthusiastic to say the least, and it shows us that we are indeed on the right track. A number of the folks we met with are writers for a number of online sources so expect new coverage on "Torment" to hit the web pretty soon. I guess we will set up a separate page with links to all the coverage we can find on the game so that it is much easier for you to surf all these exciting articles, each of which will most likely reveal some different angle and take on the game. Let's try to make this list as complete as possible together. So, if you are aware of any online sources that contain "Torment" related material, please send us the URL if it is missing from our list so that we can include it on our pages. Please send all URL submissions to webmaster@interplay.com and make sure you don't include questions in these emails as they will inevitably land on the desk of our webmasters who are most certainly too busy to answer your questions. In other news we are proud to announce that our print ad is finally finished and is going out to magazines these days. Remember I was telling you about the special effects photo shoot we did in Burbank some time ago? Here's the result of that one wonderful day and countless hours of post-production. The ad is a result of a lot of tweaking and was subject to a number of ongoing discussions. Originally we had a completely different concept than the one you see above, but it got changed last December after some discussions with our senior managers and frankly, today I am very happy it did! Still, this design was also floating around for quite a while now and has undergone at least 10 changes. The arrangement of the images, the arrangement of the text, the text itself, the size of the head, the size and number of screenshots, everything was constantly juggled around, until we finally settled for the version you see here. What is even more important however is that finally you, too, can see the result of that photo session and the excruciating process of getting the ad right. It is a 2-page spread ad with a cool look, some information of the game and some really BIG screenshots. Picking the screenshots was a bit of a headache because we tried to find some screens that adequately represent the game's action as well as the overall feel. Variety is of course also something you want to show, not to mention some of the nice and unique features of the game. I believe the images we came up with serve that purpose quite well, although I am sure once the game is fully finished we would be able to come up with even more impressive screens than these. But hey, you have to draw a line somewhere, right? You want to see screens from the game now and not sometime in the summer, I assume, so here is our illustrious assembly of scenes from the game. Check out the shot with the Modrons and the cool lighting effect, and don't forget to take a look at the Pillar of Skulls, which by the way, is fully animated! I know it is almost sadistic to tease you with all these materials, but believe me, I wish I could play the game right now, just as much as any one of you. Hier jetzt noch ein kurzes Update für all unsere Freunde im deutschsprachigen Raum. Diverse Magazine haben mich in letzter Zeit auf "Torment" hin angesprochen, und ich habe ihnen einiges an Material, Informationen, Interviews, Stories und Bilder geliefert. In den nächsten Wochen und Monaten solltet Ihr also auch in deutschen Magazinen ausgiebig Material zu unserem Spiel finden. Wenn nicht, schreibt den Jungs und Mädels und fragt mal nach, wo das Material bleibt. J Leider erhalte ich nur sehr wenige deutsche Magazine selbst dieser Tage und habe keinen rechten Überblick über den deutschen Markt mehr, aber ich hoffe doch, daß Euch Magazine wie PC Games, PC Player und Gamestar einen guten Eindruck von unserem Projekt vermitteln können. Having said all this, I guess it's time to go back to work. If you have any question, opinions, comments or suggestions for the game, make sure to post it on our message boards and include everyone in your discussion. We love to hear from you and the feedback we get from these message boards is invaluable to us. So keep posting, and let us know what you think of the ad. 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.