Arcanum Data

I talk about the sheer amount of data in Arcanum. TLDW: it's a lot.

Here are the numbers I mentioned:

Art
846 Interface art
40 Unique NPC art
32 Monster art
73 Container art
32 Light shapes
88 Tile art
16 Roof art
43 Wall art
7 Wall proto
373 Portal art
1434 Scenery art
709 Item ground art
712 Item inventory art
415 Item paper doll art
339 Item schematic art
373 Facade art
78 Portraits
625 Item effects
9 Movies
56 End slides (each one with art and sound fx)
456 Eye candy art

Game Data
25 Story states
81 Maps
163 Quests
54 Blessings
52 Curses
76 Reputations
502 Spells
58 Level Schemes
56 Factions
36 Skills
123 Inventory Sources (e.g. rural general store)
69 Keys

Sounds
460 Critter sounds
29 Interface sounds
106 Item sounds
75 Melee sounds (e.g. punching)
842 Spell sounds
126 Misc sounds (e.g. chest opening)

Text
1152 Description strings
25 Combat text strings (e.g. poison level)
77 Backgrounds
408 Main menu text strings
330 In-Game Books
24 In-Game Notes
223 Newspaper Stories
34 Telegrams
35 Plaques
204 Quotes in the quote file

Videos I reference:

[bucca.]

Thanks again for all your vids. I hope whoever does Fallout 5 - Bethesda or Obsidian, that either Todd or Fergus get you to do some senior level consulting. Nobody does RPGs like you! Thanks from Queensland Australia

[paendamonium]

Looking at Arcanum data “for various reasons”…. Interesting to hear all the technical breakdowns!

[WastelandChef]

It’s awesome to see you talk about Arcanum. I bought it on release back then and I remembered having had a blast playing it, cheers!

[nVinter]

Anything regarding Arcanum is incredible good news to me. Arcanum was one of my first RPGs and it is by far my favorite game of all time. I've been playing it every year or two since the age of 10. I'm 30 now.

[skaruts]

The one I was most interested in was dialogues. It was always something I wondered about, how many would they be. I remember there being dialogue variations for intelligence, charisma, and even for your choices of clothing. Phenomenal piece of work, especially considering how small the team was.
💘🍻

[vexlix-deliquesce]

The magic of the internet is that I can watch this video about a game that was a CORNERSTONE of my childhood, as someone who has grown up to be a developer, and tell one of the developers: yo! I loved your game! It left an intense and lasting impact on me and I still revisit it every now and then, and regularly listen to the OST.

Thanks for the video. It also feels to me like there were way more than 32 monsters! I feel like I could name more than 32 but I suppose a lot of those were re-hues and re-sizes of the same base model.

[charliek]

Yay! More arcanum trivia. Pity you can't release the build you're working on. Informative as always

[dennislarsen]

This is the first time your dogs snoring made me laugh out loud... The image of " super happy, enthusiastic man listing up game data to loud snoring" just hits a little too close to home for me! A big thank you to "the beast"!

[CallOfCutie]

11:50 the counting of dialogue lines, opening individual files, etc could be automated with code. If someone’s curious enough

[AaronVictoria]

This is the first time I've ever listened to one of your videos with my headphones on, and I hear what sounds like distant snoring or heavy breathing in the background, and I'm LMAO because I find that sound to be relaxing like what would be a LO-FI theme that most creators use in the background of their videos. I've always thought, "there is a strongly deafening silence behind him as he talks", and today that deafening silence was over for me.

Great video as always haha.

[DrakonBlade]

Wow, apparently there's quite a few of us that were kids or teens when Arcanum came out.
Not my first RPG, i think Blue Bytes' Albion from 1994 was my very first; but Arcanum is still one of my favorites, warts and all.

Tim, you and everyone should be proud of what you accomplished with Arcanum, it wasn't perfect but it was memorable and that is a great legacy to have.

[squigglez_]

Hi Tim, I wanted to say i really enjoy your videos, and i spent over 3 hours getting arcanum running on Steam deck. I had to do some control mapping, and i did use the unofficial patch, but it was well worth it.

[anonymousmouse]

I just looked it up, its only $6 on Steam. I have never gotten to play any of your games before, I just really like hearing your stories, but this will be my first!

[paulwilliams]

i always loved how robes looked on your character in arcanum. One of the only games were I felt robes were an awesome visual. Generally they look like a crappy bathrobe in most games.

[R-YR]

I don't think this is as much technical as it is your everyday nerd stuff

That's what we're all here for!

[thefoxoflaurels]

While on the topic of Arcanum: I adore the Beauty stat idea and think in a system with a greater emphasis on fashion and social maneuvering it's a huge difference-maker. In system it's the primary attribute for a lot of charisma-based casters' spells but also determines first impressions as well as high Beauty characters are less likely to be targeted in combat as they're perceived to be less threatening. It sort of works like Luck in a lot of ways. Beauty is sort of like your Social Agility, Charisma is your Social Strength if that makes sense. A video on the Beauty stat would be awesome!

[Squidforhire]

I love your vids, huge fan of your work, but came to it late. I just started Arcanum and wow. You can tell the 'lessons learned' even with this 25 year old game. I am a huge fan of the Channel and this video appealed to me, a sys admin, who always wanted to be a writer for games as a kid. You're a big inspiration, still, and love how you lay out information.

[KeiNovak]

Wow, that was interesting. It helps us gauge the size of our own projects in comparison.

[Psilocervine]

Arcanum is one of my all time favourite games and a major inspiration to me. Being able to hear about it in this level of detail is absolutely a treat

[Caulkhead]

I'm ready to buy Arcanum again, thanks x