As for what wrpg is.

In fact, in the previous narrative, for the sake of simplicity, no accurate vocabulary was used to express it.

For example, there are two types of rpg.

One is called jrpg, which is Japanese rpg, and j means Japan.

The other is American rpg. This statement is inaccurate, or inaccurate, because there is no American rpg at all. The term for this game type should be wrpg.

The full name is western-rpg, which is Western-style rpg, which can also be called European and American rpg. However, because Europeans' contributions to this type of game are basically negligible, many people, or most people, like to call wrpg directly American rpg.

In addition to Black Island, there is another company that has to be mentioned.

interplay.

Before the disbandment of Black Island, Brian Fargo and Matthew Vanderly, two famous figures in the American RPG field, left Interplay and founded a company focused on developing RPG games in 2002 called Inxile Entertainment.

The company has a longer dormant period than Obsidian. In fact, their most famous work for a long time was the 2004 game "The Legend of Ice City", which tells the story of a rebellious and humorous bard. It attracted widespread praise for its unique topic selection and interesting gameplay - but the entire company then fell silent. They developed several ios/flash games and a DS game, but they never made any sounds other than that.

In 2012, three crowdfunding game projects were born on Begian.com, one Obsidian and two inxile, and for a long time it became the top three with the highest crowdfunding amount on KS.

Obsidian Entertainment's crowdfunding project is code-named "Eternal Plan", and the final crowdfunding amount is nearly 4 million US dollars (3.98 million). The final result of this plan is an old-school-to-unimaginable RPG game "Pillar of Eternity". This game has been released in 2015. In fact, this game does not adopt the copyright of DND due to authorization issues, but this is really a DND game with a dnd style.

It can be played as "Bader's Gate 3".

In fact, professional is really an American rpg that can give full marks.

The first project of inxile-entertainment is "Wasteland 2", with the final crowdfunding amount of nearly 3 million (2.93 million), and the second project is "Suffering: The Tide of Newmonra", which is still under development. As of now, the crowdfunding amount has exceeded 4 million.

"Wasteland 2" is the official sequel to the classic RPG "Wasteland" in 1988. The producers of "Wasteland" and "Wasteland 2" are both the founders of Inxile Entertainment Brian Fargo. Therefore, in both the KS comment page or the Steam "Wasteland 2" purchase page, many people mentioned their unforgettable experience of playing "Wasteland" on Apple computers when they were young.

If you don't know how strong the sentiment of the game "Wasteland" is, I can give an example like this.

This game is the teacher of "Fallout", and you can clearly know what position this game occupies in the history of American RPG.

In terms of production lineup, the game "Pillar of Eternity" is almost the reappearance of "Ice Wind Valley", "Bad Gate" and "Exotic Soul-Supering Song" back then. During the crowdfunding promotion, Obsidian has been insisting on the connection between this work and these "Ancient Legendary RPGs". In fact, after the game was released, players found that they really did what they said - "Pillar of Eternity" is old and hard-core, full of the flavor of "Bad Gate".

You may wonder how this thing called "Suffering: Tides of Neumonra" can be more appealing than the feelings of "Ice Wind Valley" and "Bad Gate" - look at its English name "torment: tidesnumenera", and the original name of the masterpiece "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song" was "Suppressing Scenery" ("planescape: Torment") - Yes, this is the direct spiritual sequel to "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song".

Of course. These things just flashed through Jester's mind.

It is not that easy to succeed in crowdfunding. It is necessary to convince those players to agree to participate in your crowdfunding. Even those with great appeal and sentimentality cannot easily do it.

In fact, during the crowdfunding publicity stage, these projects encountered a small chaos.

At the beginning, the "Eternal Plan" almost appeared as a "Sequel to the Spirit of Exotic Soul-Supervised", because Obsidian's creative director chris-avellone was the main designer of "Supervised Soul-Supervised" back then. However, the design temperament of the entire game displayed at the beginning of the project is highly consistent with the "Supervised Scenery" module. It is a sequel to "Supervised Soul-Supervised" from the perspective of gameplay content.

Later, with the further release of the content, everyone found that the content style of the "Eternal Plan" was more inclined to traditional magical themes. Therefore, in subsequent promotion, although Obsidian occasionally mentioned the connection between its producers and "Exotic Soul-Supering Song", more often they still politely gave up their name to this work, emphasizing their commonalities with "Baod's Gate".

Of course, as for why "Suffering: The Tide of Neumonra" is the direct spiritual sequel to "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song", and "The Pillar of Eternal", which is the main designer of "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song", is not, there is a reason for this.

Because the theme of "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song" was the "Exotic Scenic Battle Module".

In order to facilitate players to experience the story, the "Dungeons and Dragons" series of table games has launched a large number of self-contained worldview settings description documents. The more famous one is "Dragon Spear". This series is well-known for "Dragon Spear Chronicles". It is one of the favorite settings of early Dungeons and Dragons players and "Forgotten Country". The story of your beloved dark elf Drizzt takes place here - "Night of Winter/Night of Winter City" is the best video game changer in this module.

In contrast, "Alien Landscape" is relatively niche and alien - because it is a module that introduces complex plane systems and emphasizes philosophy and belief descriptions. Some of the wonderful elements that are difficult to tell whether they are science fiction or magic are difficult to tell, and eventually they stop developing due to the overly obscure and scarce player - this is the root of the game "Exotic Soul-Supering Song" which has a rich philosophical thinking meaning of the game.

While developing "Suffering", inxile applied for full authorization for another tabletop game setting "Neumonra".

"Neumonra", which once won the award for the high quality of the setting, is a world setting that combines science fiction and magic styles, and is exactly the same as "anomanda landscape". Since the author of this setting, Monte Cook, once worked as a game designer in Tsr (the former creation and distribution company of DND), after the development of the anomanda landscape, many enthusiasts regard the anomanda tide as the resurrection and continuation of the anomanda landscape.

Because of this, "Suffering: The Tide of Neumonra", adapted from this rule, is naturally named the successor of "Exotic Soul-Suppressing Song".

Let’s take a look at the naming methods of the two works—“torment: tidesnumenera” and “planescape: torment”—all use a combination of “original rule name” and “suffering”, but the order is different. I don’t know if it was inxile intentionally for the sake of emotions.

Although it seems that inxile has two works, Obsidian accounts for one, in fact, in order to fully exert the power of emotions and when the crowdfunding went smoothly, inxile invited Obsidian to participate in the development of "Wasteland 2", and Obsidian happily accepted it - this scene of the two veterans sympathizing with each other made the "old-hearted cannons" talk about it, and "Wasteland 2" also responded to players' expectations in a traditional mode: the old-school game system, the old-school stage performance; and the old-school wasteland story-the text volume is astonishingly large.

When these three works were active on the kickstarter stage, KS's nostalgic atmosphere almost reached its peak. These three projects echo each other, allowing old players to see the glory of Black Island back then, as if they were back to that exquisite, European and American RPG masterpiece based on Trpg ideas. Because of this, many people paid in tears.

In Jester's vision, this old American RPG will definitely be eliminated by the world.

Even with his efforts, this elimination may be faster.

And it's like the world he is familiar with.

After this old-school American RPG is eliminated, there will inevitably be many players who like nostalgia who want to play such a game again.

But maybe, because the market of such games is not big, the fans are not many, and it is difficult to count, there may be no game company willing to do it, and the ones that are willing to do it may be some small studios. They have project establishments but are not capable. At this time, the role of crowdfunding is reflected.

Of course, when it comes to game crowdfunding, it is the most unforgettable project.

It's "Interstellar Citizen".

When Jester thought of the concept of crowdfunding, it was naturally impossible not to think of such a game or project.
Chapter completed!