Kickstarter: Torment

Given the Torment Kickstarter is about to expire, I figured I'd best explain what it was more than my brief blurb.  Keep in mind, the Kickstarter ends Friday, so you've got two days to make up your mind.

Planescape: Torment was one of the few games that left a memorable legacy with me that's lasted since my youth.  It was a Black Isle Studios product, in all the glory that Black Isle once carried.  It was an isometric CRPG using the Infinity Engine, bringing to life the AD&D setting of Planescape.  For the uninitiated, Planescape is a rather bizarre setting involving travel through planes based on the concept of pure ideas -- the elemental plane of fire, for example, or the plane dedicated to the concept of perfect order.  Every idea or concept had a physical manifestation in Planescape, and similarly, belief in a concept brought it to life.  The theme of Torment was a simple one: the malleability of a fundamental truth.  The player takes the role of the amnesiac Nameless One, and is haunted by a past he does not remember.  One question guides the bumbling tabula rasa: What can change the nature of a man?
The core of the game is played in the nexus of all of the planes, where ideas coexist and are simultaneously balanced by a uncaring deity.  Sigil, the City of Doors, becomes a neutral ground where the character's actions can play out on ideas in a microcosm.  Sigil is host to all concepts, all ideas, and all beliefs at once, and thus is constantly shifting to adapt and re-balance.  It makes sense, then, that even if they can't obtain the D&D license for a spiritual sequel, a setting just as agnostic and yet faceted is necessary.  Enter Numenera.
Numenera is a setting that is built upon millions upon millions of years of unknown history.  The setting itself is both fantasy and science-fiction, without floating into the realm of science fantasy itself.  The amalgam of hundreds upon thousands of doomed cultures creates a similar balance to that of Sigil, without being tied directly to a D&D license -- it was initially proposed as a return to Planescape, but they were unable to obtain the license.  By divorcing the concept of Torment from its setting, inXile is able to develop a successor with similar themes and a similar feel without relying on a license that is notoriously difficult to obtain.  A new fundamental question follows the player through their journey: What does one life matter?