10/11/99

Hey All, As most of you know, it's crunch time in Torment. Things are progressing well as we push on towards the goal. While this is regarded by many in development as the worst time in a project, it is also, strangely enough, the best time: this is when the bugs get fixed and the game gets balanced. This is when we can make a real difference on whether the game is fun or not. And this final stage of the project can make or break a game. To reflect for a moment, there were many games from years past that were skewed in different directions in terms of balance. I remember the classics Ultima III and IV which I felt were pretty solid in terms of balance and fun factor. Some games were a bit too easy, like Final Fantasy VII, yet they still managed to stun, impress and excite. Of course, being too easy can also ruin a game completely, like in Dynamite Dekka (Saturn) where the game could be beaten in 16 minutes(!). Or an 'RPG' like Parasite Eve (Sony PSX) which could be beaten easily in 7 hours. On the other extreme, there were games like the US version of Dynamite Headdy for the Genesis, which was 'brilliantly' tweaked so that only the most hardcore platform kings could beat the game. Or Guilty Gear's final boss which still takes the crown for cheapest boss in a fighting game ever. Or any Psikyo shooter, where the difficulty starts at "Monkey" and progresses to "Easy" (which is already fraggin' hard), "Normal" and then has 5 levels of "Difficult" after that. Or even going way back to the classic TSR "Tomb of Horrors" module. Indeed, when a game gets so ridiculously difficult that you end up 'creep & saving' the entire game and reloading constantly (or you can't even finish it), or it gets so easy that you beat the game in less than half a day, that's when the 'game balancing phase' for those games were thrown out the window - unless it was those companies' intent to make the games that way. Ultimately, balance is a fine line to tread, and is dependent (at times) on genre as well. Some of the best games out there, like Resident Evil 2 (Sony PSX) can be beaten (on average) in about 7 hours, and on a second time through, I was able to beat it in 2 hours. But that didn't ruin the game at all for me; in fact, it's a classic IMHO. As aforementioned, a game like Final Fantasy VII and VIII can both be beaten in 30 hours or so (for those that just want to see the basics), but for myself, I ended up playing them each for about ~ 120 hours or more, just checking out all the extra mini-games, side quests, secret items and spells you can find along the way. It is this addictive quality that we'd like to instill in Planescape: Torment - to allow players to role-play in a unique and distinct world for as long as they want (or as little as they want), and to allow them to concentrate on participating and role-playing in this world, rather than worrying about constantly saving and reloading because the game was too hard, or feeling ripped off because it was too easy. Ultimately, it's all about you having fun, and that's what we're burning the midnight oil for. Enjoy. -Ken Lee

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