KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[Zombra]

RTS games

wat

Glanced at the article, they fixed the error

 

[luinthoron]

RTS games

wat

Glanced at the article, they fixed the error

Barely. It's still linking them together in a very weird way, implying a connection that simply isn't there. If they'd also include the bit with RTS games doing the same to TBS before, that would count as really fixing it.

 

[Infinitron]

Full interview: http://www.pcgamer.com/how-x-coms-creator-is-reinventing-his-masterpiece-in-phoenix-point/

How X-Com's creator is reinventing his masterpiece in Phoenix Point
Julian Gollop discusses his new game, and how X-Com became its own sub-genre.

X-Com creator Julian Gollop and his studio Snapshot Games have raised over $750,000 on crowdfunding platform Fig to make Phoenix Point, a game that looks like a perfect match for anyone who's enjoyed Firaxis's recent XCOM efforts. Set on a mostly destroyed Earth in 2057, you lead part of an organisation called the Phoenix Project, and are tasked with saving the last pockets of humanity from aliens and an encroaching mist that mutates every living thing it touches.

In doing so, you'll ally with one of three different conflicting human factions (or maybe more). Plus, with a strategic layer that borrows more from 4X games, it's a very different proposition to Firaxis's recent titles—but no less exciting.

In this interview, I asked Julian to talk me through how they approached the game's tactical and strategic layers, enemy types and X-Com's growth into a sub-genre of its own.

We've seen early footage of what a battle looks like in Phoenix Point. Can you give us an overview of what you're trying to achieve with the game?

What I want to do with Phoenix Point is create a very rich and systemic game world that has a lot of dynamic interactions on a strategic level, not just on the tactical level. So one of the things I'm doing with Phoenix Point is taking something I did before, actually, with X-Com Apocalypse, where you had a city with different factions with different resources, and they had relationships with each other, and you could raid them, help them, or so on. So in the world of Phoenix Point, in its post-apocalyptic setting, humanity is basically fractured but there are three strong factions, and they're trying to expand and take control of things.

They've got their own purpose, their own technology, their own strengths and weaknesses. And you, as a player, are almost like a fourth faction trying to interact with them. So there's diplomacy elements, there's resource management elements, and it, in a way, is a bit similar to how modern 4X games function, but one of the Xs is in reverse: the human population is actually shrinking and not expanding, because you're fighting against this mist which is coming in from the sea, which is pouring all these alien creatures onto the land. What you have to do as a player, which makes it different, is you actually have to find one of the possible solutions to the alien menace, and it will come from one of these three factions.

But in a way, the game world on a strategic level, is much more systems-driven and dynamic in a similar way to a 4X game than maybe anything I've done before. And the tactical level is very similar to X-Com. The main additions we have there are these big monsters, and they can mutate and different limbs can come out of them. There's this mist that appears on the battlefield, which can really constrict it from a much more open firefight to a much more closed one. But I guess the main underlying thing I'm trying to do with the game is create a rich and detailed world, which although it's systems-driven, has a lot of game lore and back story to it, which gives a rich history to the whole thing before the game starts.

The mutated creatures that form the enemies in the game look like a sidestep from the approach taken in X-Com.

Yeah, they needed to do something different. These creatures are based on combining the DNA of humans with other animals, and they're going through an evolutionary process—so how would this work on the battlefield? What would they evolve or develop as you're fighting these things? They're still a work-in-progress. We've got a lot in progress now, they're definitely going to change a lot from the prototype you've seen. But the principle is, that you're fighting, in a way, a bit of a moving target because there are going to be evolutions where you have subtle differences between enemies from one battle to the next. Then bang: all of a sudden, you'll see a big evolutionary step, and a completely new monster appear, which will go down its own evolutionary path and so on. But the interesting thing is, each time you play the game, you'll probably get a different selection of these evolutions. There's a random element to it, it's not fixed, in a similar way to the way evolution works. You have random mutations, and if the mutations fit—if they're successful on the battlefield—they will produce more of them.

Do you see this as you picking up where you left off with this kind of game?

Yes, definitely. The modern XCOM has shown how amazing turn-based tactical games can be, and we are evolving on that with Phoenix Point, for sure. But on the strategic side of the game, we wanted to do something a bit different. And, as I say, the closest thing I can really compare it with might be the original X-Com, or possibly some modern 4X games because it has some elements of those. And this will create a more interesting dynamic between the tactical and strategic, in the sense that the player doesn't always have a fixed objective for a mission, and it might be that you send your soldiers into a haven with the idea that you want to steal some technology. So you're going into his laboratory area, but you may find that it's proving a bit too difficult, so you can switch to just trying to sabotage it instead. If you can't get it, blow it to bits. That's a decision you can make on the battlefield, you don't have a pre-scripted mission objective. So what happens on the battlefield will have a knock-on effect on the strategic level, and the fact that you may steal stuff, you may kidnap people, you may assassinate people, sabotage. All these different missions are available to you as a player.

I like the idea of strong connective tissue between the two layers. I really enjoyed Firaxis's Enemy Unknown, but I thought the tactical and strategic layers felt a bit far removed from each other at times, for example.

Well, when you think about it, all the X-Com games, going back to the ones I worked on, the strategic layer is the thing that's changed the most. So the original was set on a globe, Terror From The Deep sort of copied that, but X-Com Apocalypse was radically different. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is reminiscent of the original but is actually quite different, because it's a much more scripted sequence of stuff. It's more like a min/maxing management sim. With XCOM 2, they changed it quite radically again. So this seems to be the area of the X-Com genre-style game that's changing the most. With Phoenix Point, again, we're doing something different on that area of the game, while retaining this core tactical turn-based gameplay which is more familiar across all the X-Com games.

How do you feel about your creation becoming its own sub-genre?

I think it's fantastic. When you think that for so long I was trying to make this kind of game and no publisher was even interested, what it proves that there's now an audience for this style of game. It may not be absolutely massive, but it's a pretty solid, dedicated audience. People have been asking me to remake X-Com, or Laser Squad, or anything forever. They've always asked me to do it. It's just getting commercial interest from a publisher to actually do it has been very difficult. You may remember the original turn-based games were pretty much killed off by the massive RTS explosion in '96, in particular.

Which itself was then basically killed off, years later (except StarCraft).

Which itself was killed off by MOBAs, I guess, which have replaced RTSs, in a way? It's interesting, the ebb and flow of the different genres, but somehow, Jake and his team at Firaxis have managed to resurrect this genre that was considered practically dead, and resurrected it with a really modern up-to-date [game], and it's been fantastically successful. So it just goes to show that maybe I was right to pursue this kind of game. But what the new XCOM game has allowed me to do is make Phoenix Point, because without it, I doubt I even would've attempted it. God knows what I'd be doing. I think it's fair to say it's now a new genre of game. It's now established, and there are people who are actively looking for this style of game, and there will be more like them, which is really cool. It's brilliant. From my point of view, it's great.

Watching the videos of Phoenix Point, the area where I see the most similarities with the Firaxis XCOM games right now is the UI, in how contemporary it looks. Is that fair to say?

Yes. At the moment, our UI is basically the same as XCOM 2. It's probably not going to stay that way forever, because we've got some different requirements for our game. One thing that's very important in Phoenix Point is the willpower of a character. So you've got their hit points, but the willpower is a very important stat because it factors into not just the use of special abilities, but it also affects the morale system. Certain things can cause a character's willpower to go down. If it's forced below zero, it can cause your character to panic. Consequently, because the aliens are really nasty, they have special alien types that actually focus on attacking willpower. But then you can counteract it, because you can develop particular skills, like leadership skills, rallying and other stuff, then restore willpower to your troops. It has a bit more of a dynamic on that side of the game. So there will be some changes to the interface to reflect the different underlying mechanics we've got.

Can you talk about how you approached classes this time, considering the type of enemies players are contending with?

We do have a character class system, and you start with three basic classes—normally a heavy weapons guy, a sniper and a standard assault guy. Very standard, boring stuff, except the heavy weapons guys really do have heavy armour on them. Each of the factions has one or two unique classes, and they also have some of the classes that are completely missing. So for example, Synedrion, they don't have assault guys or heavy guys. They have snipers and they have infiltrators and they have technicians, for example. If you exchange or steal technology with Synedrion or ally with them, you'll get access to the new classes that they have, and you can specialise one of your guys, who may be an assault [class], and convert him or upgrade him into one of these new classes you now have access to.

I guess that's the big difference: the classes you've got access to are based on your faction relationships, and you can actually multiclass your characters.

And you can only align with one faction per campaign?

No, it's not quite that restricted. You can ally with more than one faction—potentially you could ally with three of them, but not for very long, because they will come into conflict with each other at some point. But you've got three ways of getting technology and resources from factions. First of all, you can literally just steal it. You've discovered that they've got a laboratory with their tech research, and you can go in there and take—though you'll have to fight for it, obviously. The other is, you can do trades. So if you've got something they want, and they've got something you want, you can exchange stuff. Third thing is, you can ally with them. This relies on you helping to defend their havens, but in return, you get access to their latest tech, you can help them develop their tech. That's probably the most reliable and cheapest way of getting their tech, but it may break your alliance with one of the other ones, or if both your allies come into conflict with each other, you've got to make a choice.

We're not sure how it's going to play out, but if possible, I want the player to have different strategies. They might want to sequentially ally with the different factions to get their tech. You might want to ally with one in order to attack the other one and steal their tech. You might want to build your own resources to do more trading, without coming into conflict with any of them. All of these should be possible ways the player could actually play the game.

So in theory, you could blend classes from all three of the factions by the late game?

You could, yes. You'd get access to all of their classes, which would be quite interesting because they look very different to each other.

I get more of an idea of the 4X elements you're blending with the game from the way tech works, there. Are your interactions with other factions similar to something like Civ?

It's similar. So each haven has a leader, with a personality that affects who they like, who they don't like, whether they're cautious, aggressive, more insular, whether they're looking for allies, that kind of stuff. Then each faction has their own leadership, as well. Again, they have their own personality and objectives, these leaders. Synedrion's leaders can change a lot, which can be a bit annoying, because they're a democratic, council-based kind of organisation. The leader of New Jericho is this charismatic leader, Tobias West, somebody who can also change his view on things, which can affect you in different ways. Disciples of Anu are a bit more difficult. To even reach a discussion with them, you have to go through a whole series of tests, going through layers of their hierarchy before you're even allowed to talk to their leader, The Exalted. So they all have a different way you interact with them. Systemically, they're much more different to each other than the civilisations in Civ.

In the case of the latter leader, that sounds reasonably arduous in terms of time investment. With humanity shrinking, do you have to be conscious of time ticking down when you make these choices?

Yes, because time is not on your side, the mist will start enveloping. There are things you can do to push the mist back, to stop it attacking havens. It depends on having access to the right technology at the right time. You can't spend forever doing this stuff, and there is a bit of time pressure involved. The aliens have their own agenda, and they'll pursue it regardless of what you do. They're not going to wait for you to have your conversation with the Disciples of Anu. You can't do everything.

A lot of it will be down to the player's attractions to these factions: their personalities or maybe their technology. It just gives the player a different way to play the game. It's a different balancing act, because you have to make sure that each of these factions are equally attractive to the player. Certain types of players will be attracted to the militaristic New Jericho, who like blowing stuff up. And if you really like blowing stuff to bits and burning everything to the ground with robots and big guns, New Jericho are probably the guys for you.

If you're much more interested in stealth and theft-type missions, then Synedrion are probably the guys for you. If you're really interested in weird religious cultist shit—maybe you're a goth, I don't know—with some really weird characters doing weird stuff, then Disciples of Anu are for you. That's basically the way we want it to work, so we tried to make sure at every level the factions have these very distinct technologies, ideologies and character classes. It gives the player a meaningful choice.

 

[luinthoron]

Much better this time.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Want.

 

[veevoir]

If you're much more interested in stealth and theft-type missions, then Synedrion are probably the guys for you. If you're really interested in weird religious cultist shit—maybe you're a goth, I don't know—with some really weird characters doing weird stuff, then Disciples of Anu are for you. That's basically the way we want it to work, so we tried to make sure at every level the factions have these very distinct technologies, ideologies and character classes. It gives the player a meaningful choice.

I snorted in my beer. JG is god, I want this second coming to be second coming.

 

[udm]

Agreed. He did Chaos Reborn, warts and all, and didn't back down on whiners crying about RNG. I sincerely believe that he can pull this off and give us the game that we need and deserve.

 

[luinthoron]

Phoenix Point's Facebook page is showing us what they call

the Cheron. Slow moving mobile artillery, it mutates to fire different munitions.

 

[hello friend]

it's a crab

 

[Latelistener]

 

[Alienman]

It's a fabulous crab.

 

[Jimmious]

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/phoenix-point/xcom-julian-gollop

Why XCOM still needs Julian Gollop

In 2014, original X-Com designer Julian Gollop Kickstarted a reboot of one of his early successes, Chaos. He said he was doing so because nobody else had remade it yet. Implicit in the statement was the idea that he didn’t need to remake X-Com since Firaxis had already done such a good job of it.

“So why did I do Phoenix Point?,” Gollop asks, preempting the question with a high-pitched laugh.

Gollop’s new game - crowdfunded on Fig to the tune of $760,000, plus an extra $100,000 thanks to the platform’s investment system - marks his return to the X-Com formula. It is a turn-based tactics game about the defence of Earth, played in two layers: one being a broad strategic overview of the planet, the other about guiding a squad of vulnerable soldiers through uncomfortably close combat. A familiar pitch, to say the least, but while Phoenix Point is not the only game of its kind, it is one Gollop considers necessary.

“As much as I enjoy Firaxis’ XCOMs - and I consider them the best games around at the moment, especially War of the Chosen - there’s something nagging me that still needs to be done,” he explains. “The question I’m putting to myself is how to make an interesting, dynamic world on the strategy level that has a lot of procedural elements in the same way as the tactical level.”

What Gollop has tasked himself with is threading X-Com’s unscripted consequences through an entire game: “The feeling that, if you leave things to happen, they will happen. That if you intervene, it will change what things happen. That feeling, I still think, is absent from the new XCOM games to a large extent. I felt this really needed to be tackled. It seemed like the obvious thing I needed to do, and it became my mission.”

Gollop’s studio, Snapshot, have expanded to 24 people across two teams: one for the tactical battles, and another devoted solely to the ‘geoscape’, as Gollop still calls it.

This latter team reflects Gollop’s growing interest in the potential of mechanics yoinked from the 4X genre. It is an interest that first bore fruit in Chaos Reborn’s single-player campaign, and returns here in much more ambitious form.

While Phoenix Point’s small-scale tactical component sensibly borrows from the newer XCOM games and features no “radical innovations” - bar overlarge, mutating enemies - the strategy layer is an overland map that developers organically, and is unlike anything Gollop or Firaxis have tried before.

Before the events of the game - so Phoenix Point’s backstory goes - a Lovecraftian mist came from the sea and abducted people, compelling them to walk into the waves. At the beginning of the campaign, that mist returns to creep across the map once again - bringing those lost souls back, but changed for the worse, now with tentacles and a penchant for mindless violence. If the mist is not stopped, humanity is doomed to a fate worse than mildew.

There is more than one way to stop the mist - but each solution lies with a specific faction, all of whom possess some special knowledge they are keeping to themselves. New Jericho, for instance, intend to reboot the satellite network. These AI groups run havens all over the map, subsisting and trading resources quite happily until the mist arrives.

Once it does, however, they will need your resources and military oomph to survive. You might plump for a formal alliance, promising to assist a faction’s havens while helping them implement their solution. Or you might barter with a starving group for tech. Or simply steal it.

“During the course of the game you can switch [alliances],” Gollop says. “These things are not necessarily very stable.”

Some missions might not trigger a combat situation at all - instead simply asking you to fly resources to an at-risk haven and get out again. In other words, Phoenix Point comes bolted to a full-fledged grand strategy game, albeit one altered by a classic X-Com element: constant deterioration.

It is this aspect of the game that Gollop’s biggest fan, Jake Solomon, is most excited about.

“It’s funny that I did factions in War of the Chosen, which are very straightforward and rules-based,” the XCOM creative director says. “I wanted them to be very fluid or organic, but that’s just not my style. Julian is doing factions more like X-Com: Apocalypse, where it sounds very fluid.”

Solomon is a Gollop game devotee turned peer and friend - he describes the two as “brothers in arms” and speaks in open admiration of the original X-Com creator and his design principles.

“He’s a very different designer than I am,” Solomon notes. “I try to make the choices explicit, with big, chunky numbers. Julian’s much more into simulation - he always was. It’s not clear necessarily what you’re gonna get, cos things can go a lot of different ways.”

Although Phoenix Point is technically a competitor to his own series, Solomon does not see it that way - pointing to Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle as another exciting development in a burgeoning genre that for too long lay dormant.

“We’re in this awesome space where there’s a lot of blue ocean and we can all be positive with each other as designers,” he says. “All of us are lifting each other up - if the games are good, it’s not going to hurt any of us. It’s cool for me to see that Julian is still making games, and maybe because of our XCOM he gets to come back and make a game like Phoenix Point.”

Gollop persisted with turn-based tactics throughout what he refers to as the “Dark Ages” - the years before XCOM revived the genre. He was sustained by a stubborn streak, and the fans who never stopped telling him how much they loved and missed X-Com and Rebelstar Raiders. But without Phoenix Point’s strategy layer - the thing that prevents it becoming a retread of his old work - he simply would not be making it.

“Maybe it would’ve worked, but it’s just not something that would really interest me in terms of pushing the game design,” he says. “I think we really need to explore something a bit new and different in this game, otherwise there isn’t much point in doing it. I’d be accused of making a clone of a game which is based on a game which I already did.”

That high-pitched laugh again. “Which is a bit bizarre, when you think about it.”

 

[Zombra]

I didn't really parse the backstory before. Great to see this is a "mutants from the mist" story instead of a space aliens flying saucers story.

 

[Jimmious]

I didn't really parse the backstory before. Great to see this is a "mutants from the mist" story instead of a space aliens flying saucers story.

There are alien stuff in the story though too. I read some of the stories from this Kyratzes dude - one of them was clearly about some discovery on the moon as far as I can recall which played a big role

 

[Alienman]

Cosmic horrors(™)

 

[Jimmious]

Btw it was "The Hatch" story from these: https://phoenixpoint.info/archives
Some of them are pretty good actually, I like the writing style of Kyratzes in particular

 

[Alienman]

The space one was the best. Reminded me of old school Sci-fi horror.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Mazisky]

Considering that Spanish is in supported languages since Fig campaign started....why this?

 

[mwnn85]

I hope Julian can deliver with this.
ELEX has come out of nowhere and pleasantly surprised me but this is still my most anticipated title.
Q4 2018 seems like a very long time to wait.
My expectations are somewhat higher compared to something like Battletech for example.

It seems to be shaping up quite well, the alien limb system is a stroke of genius.
All the designs look great. All the plot/factions/etc sound great so far on paper.
I don't think they've got the budget to recreate Silent Storm type destruction unfortunately.

UFO, TFTD and Laser Squad Nemesis are all top notch (can still find links to the latest LSNClient on the LSN forums)
APOC is hit and miss - great city layer though. Maybe OpenApoc can redeem it.

Firaxis XCOM is so so. They could have called it anything to be honest; bought the name purely to cash in on the nostalgia.
It's all bland and mechanically simple. No large scale destruction. The move/fire system is junk as well. And those stupid spawn points.
It was never about "heroes" and "special abilities" - it's all about fielding expendable troops and blowing shit up.
Just another inferior iteration/clone.
Why bother with the long war when we've got OpenXcom?

I'm a bit surprised that Pheonix Point didn't hit higher funding numbers compared to the likes of Wasteland 2 and Divinity, etc.
I assume people either dislike fig or they're a bit burnt out with crowdfunding and inxile's broken promises.

 

[Grif]

I'm a bit surprised that Pheonix Point didn't hit higher funding numbers compared to the likes of Wasteland 2 and Divinity, etc.
I assume people either dislike fig or they're a bit burnt out with crowdfunding and inxile's broken promises.

It's a bit of both for me. After being burnt on Kickstarter twice (I backed the Mandate and some other game ), I'm honestly wary to put in more cash where it cannot be held accountable for. Fig being the centre of some controvesy didn't help. Hey, it turns out good, then it's a D1P. Else, I don't get it. Win-win for me.

 

[Achilles]

Yeah, Kickstarter fatigue is a big factor. Gollop would have raised a lot more money a couple of years ago.

 

[Mazisky]

Yeah, Kickstarter fatigue is a big factor. Gollop would have raised a lot more money a couple of years ago.

Partially his fault tho.

It's clear he had no interest in making another Xcom game until he saw Firaxis made some money with it.

 

[Achilles]

I think his two failed attempts at getting similar projects off the ground show that he had interest but couldn't get funding for them. His mistake was pursuing Chaos Reborn first instead of striking while the iron was hot with an X-Com game.