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

Speak for yourself, I don't want to be a geezer.

 

None of those dudes are geezers men.

 

What about:

 

Old, but not a geezer.

 

Did you watch the movie this shot is from? I doubt you did if you say that

 

Gran Torino was cool bro.

 

Oh missed to post this one before:

That's what the players (Phoenix Project) soldiers will look like





So to sum it up they delay the Baker Build (which seems to be not more than what we have seen on the PCGamer weekend) because of the inventory system, which will not initially be useful anyways. Interesting.

 

Up until now, we have only seen:

- a little glimpse of one faction out of four: the space mar...New Jericho
- how many aliens? Three, four?
- some artwork
- more artwork
- variations of the same artwork
- pretty nothing about classes and weapons
- nothing about inventory
- nothing about ballistic simulation
- nothing about mental traumas
- nothing about stealth
- nothing about research
- nothing about the geoscape
- nothing about base design
- just one (static!) vehicle

I'm missing something?

 

Yah. It’s still in development, dummy.

 

- they keep delaying the Backer Build
- not able to do at least once in a month a development update
- haven't decided on some features how to do them / so haven't even started on them
- "you rule the sky" air-interception status: undecided
- they are still aiming for Q4 2018, nine more months, while being two years in development
- free-aim is nowhere to be seen
- have pretty much completely changed the visually overall-tone of the game, to what they had pitched
- dedicated to make tripple A graphics
- dedicated to make a commercial successful game
- nothing new about the 4x elements

Honestly, right now what worries me the most is the time/money aspect. Two years of development, nine months to go, a lot of the big key-features (base-building, geoscape) are nowhere to be seen and from what you hear on discord when asked about these, there is "not much to show", plus the battlescape is far from finished.

Why did they have to do tripple-A graphics .
With that budget, and with that release date they are aiming for.

 

TBH if they’re going for an XCOM-like, not making it close to XCOM is a dumb move.

Like trying to go the Xenonauts route (artwise), while I would love, would just not work. I think this is the best approach to me tbh. Ppl are already recognizing it as close to XCOM. Once the rest comes out ppl will start to think of it as something other than an XCOM mod.

 

Sure it makes commercially sense!
(Fallout 4 made commercially sense as well, just as a reminder)

But they talked about other things in their Fig campaign. You can read about it all over here.

But people that funded that game thought that their money will be spent differently. Especially since everything they showed back than was totally different from what they are doing now. Only speaking about the visuals, graphics.

We will see mustawd, we will see. Nine months is not a lot of time for "the rest to come out". Especially if they are going to do some QA. And than the question will still be, have they fucked them self up with trying to please both X-Com and XCOM crowds?

 

Yes, but only for another eight months. So after 3/4 of development, how much did they show of the game? 1/10?

 

Yah I dont think they’ll make Q4 2018.

 

Oh I doubt it’ll play anything like x-com. This will be a better XCOM with deeper gameplay. Even knowing this it’s still sad to see as I see shit get more casualized. The stuff they’re talking about in the geoscape is not promising to me. Time will tell though.

I supposed a better XCOM is ok, considering I really enjoyed XCOM.

 

Well, you know, they have no publisher and I do not think that people like Shog-goth or Grotesque will give them more money. Hey mustawd. you could help them out! You seem to really belief in them and that they can do it, and that it will be a good game. You should help them, with your money!

 

What's more worrying, how is it hard to implement math side of the geoscape? As I see it, it's not that hard, and you can use very schematic assets at first. This extreme focus on the eye candy and graphix (instead of basic gameplay) tells a lot - it looks like as if the game is built around the assets and not the other way around.

 

I bet that is pretty hard. Programming a simulationist environment is way more difficult than making a scripted one.
You have so many variables that interact with each other, you add one, the complexity goes up ten fold or more.

An update on the geoscape would not require for it to even half-work but should be an update on the concept of mechanics, art update, UI, things that should've been set in stone already if the game wants to ship around that deadline.
Or maybe there's no one in charge of making in-depth updates or no one wants to spend time on it

 

Also keep in mind that they had started focusing solely on the PCGamer Weekend-Demo somewhere around August/September 2017 (that is four to six months of development), putting the other stuff on hold and hadn't been able to include everything they wanted to on February 2018 (it was a fixed dead-line), while being very limited on what they wanted to show. Out of four human factions (Phoenix Project, New Jerchio, Synedrion, Disciples of Anu) they wanted to shown one. Out of the four classes (Assault, Heavy, Sniper, Technician) the Technician didn't made it. Pandora Virus was supposed to field the redone larva and the Chiron both didn't made it in. Also they were working on driveable vehicles which didn't made it in as well.

If they keep developing the game at that rate, I doubt it will release before 2024.

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Well UnstableVoltage is responsible for the updates. As far as I understood from what I gathered on discord regarding this, he does get pictures and informations from the developers and recent builds. He stated several times that he pretty much decides what the updates will focus about. Also he often does share images on discord that he didn't included in development updates.

Still think it would be wise to do a dev-blog similar to what Overhype did with Battle Brothers (weekly), Klei with Invisible Inc, or other Indie-Games like Project Zomboid, to name just a few. It keeps players interested and engaged and is good PR. Also it counters a lot of speculation.

Seriously if you think about it, Overhype being just a three man studio and every Friday they had something to show and to read in-depth. Amazing, in retrospective.