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XCom Assault Kit

In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
Brothers!
The reptile is attacking our faith, our reputation with its vile lies!
This shall not stand!
We need to fight back!
Where the reptile is bringing the foul darkness of ignorance and deceit, we shall bring the holy light of knowledge!
We need to carry the holy flame of Knowledge to the infidel and burn his eyes for being blind to our truth!

Brothers, we need to defend our truth, the one and only truth about X-com!
X-com was a computer boardgame with added strategic and economic elements.
It's history was long.

+++Sending Intelligence Data+++
A man named Julian Gollop, the Great Creator was working for years so that we could experience the blessed joy of rookie slaughter!
He loved boardgames and wanted to use computer to create boardgames with more complicated rules.

First, in 1984 he has created Rebel Star Raiders. It was a two player computer boardgame. It didn't even have an AI. Still, it had some elements of X-Com in it.

Then he created two more Rebelstar (in 1986 and 1988) games that added a single player mode and improved game mechanics.

The combat system was refined in the excellent Laser Squad. That game featured the best automatic fire mode from all his games. I played it a lot on C64 when I was a kid.

He also created two fantasy computer boardgames - Chaos (1985 - published by Games Workshop) and Lords of Chaos (1990).

He wanted to create a Judge Dredd computer boardgame, but Games Workshop wanted a popamole bullshit action game which he wasn't ready to make.

Later, when he was seeking a publisher for his Laser Squad 2, he approached Microprose. Microprose wanted a bigger game, so they added a strategic/economic layer.
Also, it was Microprose who proposed the UFO theme of the game.
+++Transmission Complete+++

The tactical computer boardgame gameplay was there long before the strategy and long before the aliens. It was there in 1984, a whole decade before X-Com was released.
X-com wouldn't be as good as it was without the decade of evolution.

Brothers, we need to bring the enlightenment to the infidel! We must fight the foul slime of their lies with the purifying fire of our truth!
WE WILL VANQUISH!
 

Fez

Erudite
Joined
May 18, 2004
Messages
7,954
A true patriot.
iconsalute3.gif


Lords of Chaos was excellent. I replayed that not long ago and still enjoyed it.
 

Hory

Erudite
Joined
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Messages
3,002
Lords of Chaos was so good that it was one of the favourite games of pretty much any of my neighbours who had a Spectrum. There were consoletards back then too, playing Super Mario and so on the Nintendo. Thank you, dad, for buying me a computer instead. Gollop + Microprose = match made in heavan. Think of how ridiculous "the publisher wanted the game to be more complex" sounds today. Thank you, Gollop, I hope you stay in business long enough to work on a game with me some day.

Simple consoletard test: does he like X-Com? No = positive match. I bet some newfags will read this and think "Nah, the test isn't good, I haven't even played X-Com and I'm a pretty hardcore PC player." No, you're not.
 
In My Safe Space
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Messages
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Codex 2012
Hory said:
Lords of Chaos was so good that it was one of the favourite games of pretty much any of my neighbours who had a Spectrum. There were consoletards back then too, playing Super Mario and so on the Nintendo. Thank you, dad, for buying me a computer instead. Gollop + Microprose = match made in heavan. Think of how ridiculous "the publisher wanted the game to be more complex" sounds today. Thank you, Gollop, I hope you stay in business long enough to work on a game with me some day.
Well, I'm afraid that at certain point he went kinda insane like it usually happens to great developers. Just look at Laser Squad Nemesis.

Also, the publisher wanted the game bigger probably because Julian Gollop had tendency to make very small games. Rebelstars had only one scenario, first edition of Laser Squad had only 3 scenarios, etc.
 

Groof

Educated
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Messages
96
I take it that it's just some guys taking the piss, and no one's really creating a new X-COM game in a different genre and different setting.
 

Fez

Erudite
Joined
May 18, 2004
Messages
7,954
Groof said:
I take it that it's just some guys taking the piss, and no one's really creating a new X-COM game in a different genre and different setting.

Hold on to that thought.
 

Tails

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Messages
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Awor Szurkrarz said:
Well, I'm afraid that at certain point he went kinda insane like it usually happens to great developers. Just look at Laser Squad Nemesis.
What's wrong about Laser Squad Nemesis?
 
In My Safe Space
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It's not that there's something inherently wrong with Laser Squad Nemesis. It's an e-sport game with strong tabletop roots and if I understand, people like it enough to keep subscribing it. It has a good AI too.

Still, it's pretty far from the experience that Laser Squad or X-Com offered. There are straight health bars without a wound system, medics heal units like in RTS games, soldiers don't have names and look like they were made of plastic, there are no grenades for individual soldiers, average soldier carries as much ammo for his rifle as it was in a single magazine in LS/X-Com.
It's much less expressive, much less simulationist and much more sport-like.

I'm not sure if he's still interested in making/able to make games like Laser Squad or X-Com.
 

Fez

Erudite
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I thought the AI and single player element for LSN was mediocre as it was only for training you for the multiplayer? That was the impression I got ages back.
 
In My Safe Space
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Well, the AI seems to be better than in previous games. Especially when compared to the X-Com3 AI that was horribly inefficient and tended to make alien units walk and fire or run around like a headless chicken.

It tends to do stuff like withdrawing and then attacking from flank or from behind.
 

Tails

Arbiter
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Messages
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You know what, forget that I even ask that question. It would only lead to another Codex-made Best Thread Ever.

I'm not sure if he's still interested in making/able to make games like Laser Squad or X-Com.
Together with other people from Codo Technologies made a beta of tactical game with RTwP combat, yet so far he didn't publish it.

Fez said:
I thought the AI and single player element for LSN was mediocre as it was only for training you for the multiplayer? That was the impression I got ages back.
Yes.
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
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Messages
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Codex 2012
Tails said:
I'm not sure if he's still interested in making/able to make games like Laser Squad or X-Com.
Together with other people from Codo Technologies made a beta of tactical game with RTwP combat, yet so far he didn't publish it.
Any sources?

I don't think it's going to be anything like Laser Squad or X-Com.
To quote his Dreamland Chronicles interview:

GC: OK, this is an important question: Is Dreamland a turn-based or real-time
game, and why?

J.G.: The tactical combat in Dreamland is unashamedly turn based. I think
real-time games can often seem remote and uninvolving, largely because the player needs to have a big overview of the situation from a distance.


The turn-based system suits the squad-level combat in Dreamland, in which
stealth and cunning are just as important as brute force. You can experience
the actions of each soldier from his own point of view, which would be
impossible to manage in a real-time environment. The player will be intimately
acquainted with the fate of a soldier when he is torn to shreds by a hungry
Sauran.

It seems that he came to the same conclusion as I. Turn Based mode is a great tension-building tool. It allows to makes stuff more personal (selecting a soldier, moving him and watching and hearing him die from a plasma rifle shot).
Also, it introduces moments of helplessness during "hidden movement" and enemy fire.

RTwP just gives too much control to the player (control over flow of time) and adds more distance to the action. I think that pure RT with a Close Combat-like squad AI system and good radio chatter would be much better for recreating the X-Com atmosphere outside the TB mode.
 

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