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

[PanteraNera]

We still know next to nothing

Ftfy

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

We still know next to nothing

Ftfy

Jon Snow.

 

[Shog-goth]

I don't care at all about the art changes

Obviously you're entitled to your opinion, but I'd like to emphasize that is not a mere art change because by altering the visual appearance they're also shiftfing the implicit nature of the factions. Take a look at the Phoenix Project: from a charismatic ragtag band of scavengers to a generic, mundane and boring sort of futuristic army, and so on. It's a matter of vision, not only artistic direction.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

To be honest I sort of disliked the initial pitch for PP faction from Fig video.
"Great, they're going waste resources on pointless scrafs and such which will be discarded when 1st tier of armour is developed"; were my thoughts back then.

 

[Alienman]

I was just assuming scarfs and such was scavenged on the battlefield or in some apocalyptic ruin.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I was just assuming scarfs and such was scavenged on the battlefield or in some apocalyptic ruin.

While limited budget will used on modelling those instead of actual game systems?

edit.
Yeah.
moot point with console release.

Spoiler

 

[Alienman]

Oh you mean developer resources hehe.

 

[luinthoron]

If anyone wants their writing to become part of the Phoenix Point lore, they've now created a writing competition where the winner will get just that.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Will the art style be changed to suit the theme of the winning entry?

 

[Grotesque]

I have full confidence that Julian is going to deliver

Another one that lived under a rock past these years and doesn't know the brilliant track records of all those legendary developers that discovered and used kickstarter.
Oh, wait... PP used Fig.
All is good then. Deliver he will.

be discarded when 1st tier of armour is developed

Not if you play one third of a 100 hours long game with tier 1 armor. It's all in the balancing of the pacing of the game.

I remember playing TFTD with tier 1 armor for a long time and when I had tier 2 armor, it was rewarding as seeing Gollop Siren's tits illuminated by a crimson dusk for the first time.

 

[Shog-goth]

At this point I'd rather have some concrete and comforting news on the next backer build, rather than a far-fetched writing contest. More, and amateurish no less, lore: exactly what we needed.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Will they publish forbidden romance -genre entries or will those be just plain forbidden.

 

[Alienman]

Will they publish forbidden romance -genre entries or will those be just plain forbidden.

Talk about opening a can of worms

 

[luinthoron]

Will the art style be changed to suit the theme of the winning entry?

But of course!

Well, the entries have to fit the already established lore, so this is highly unlikely to be a problem, especially considering when the story is supposed to take place.

Will they publish forbidden romance -genre entries or will those be just plain forbidden.

Heh. I see no reason why this would be forbidden, but I also don't see one of those being the sole winning entry. I'm tempted to try it now, though, I love going in weird and unexpected directions with such challenges. But probably nowhere near good enough to even think about winning this...

 

[luinthoron]

New blog update:

Alien Bases
Much of the tactical combat in Phoenix Point takes place within human controlled Havens. These will not be the only places where combat occurs. There will be scavenging sites, your own bases to defend and enemy bases to attack, where the Pandoravirus mutates and grows its reinforcements.

Finding and destroying these aliens lairs will be fundamental to your success in the game. One of the main design goals for these enemy bases was to give them an organic appearance.

There are three main differences with the enemy bases to make them feel more organic and less “man-made”.

We’ve tried to avoid making the maps square. This gives more opportunity to build maze-like environments where you will have different options for taking cover, breaking line of sight and flanking your enemies.

We want the maps have a more “indoor” feeling to them. While some of them will still technically be outdoor maps, the claustrophobic feeling remains the same. Adding to the first point, this allows for more winding and twisting corridors.

We have made all of the props and features in the maps organic. We want to remove as many man-made elements as possible from the Pandoravirus environments. Many things which are required mechanically for your units to interact with (such as ladders) need to be reworked to be more organic.

A selection of organic ladders

The approach we decided to take for things such as ladders and walls, was to use the remains of other creatures. Above, you can see a variety of different creature spines and carapaces which can be placed as ladders. Having a variety is also important. Having multiple copies of an identical ladder is a man-made environment is fine - but in an attempt to keep things looking organic and “natural”, we wanted to try and avoid some repetition.

The Pandoravirus ladders also need to keep regular spacing and dimensions so that they will all still work with the climbing animations (it wouldn’t be efficient to require separate climbing animations for different ladder types). In addition, we need different variations depending on height (1 floor, 2 floors etc). With a ladder you can just extend it and add extra rungs. That doesn’t work quite so well with a spine!

Different ladder heights used on a map

As you can see above, we can vary the ladder length, keeping rungs the same distance apart to work with the climbing animations.

A selection of low-cover walls

In keeping with the organic theme, many of the walls and items that can be used as cover are also the remains (or possibly living!) creatures. Keeping them modular allows more mid-segments to extend them to any length needed.

Walkways

There will also be a number of different walkways, ramps and bridges. Even though Pandoravirus maps will have an indoor feel, they will still play on multiple levels where you can use height to your advantage.

A selection of wall-based map decorations

As the Pandoravirus has a semi-aquatic theme, many of the detail elements around the enemy bases take inspiration from corals and sea-creatures.

Pandoravirus supply crate concepts

Just like Havens, you will also find supply crates in enemy bases containing useful items and resources. Of course, a metal supply crate would look out of place. Above you can see some of the concept variations for the organic crates.

A Pandoravirus structure

Above is one of the enemy structures. We’re not going to say what this one is, or exactly what its purpose is at this point. Unlike the buildings found in Havens (which make up parts of the map and have explorable interiors), the Pandoravirus structures are standalone objects on the map which serve various functions. Some mission objectives will require you to find and destroy them.

An example layout

Finally, we can show an example layout of a possible Pandoravirus map. Like all maps, they will be procedurally generated, which can lead to more of a technical challenge as they do not conform to square map plots. Each element of the map still has to align with the grid system for movement.

Another map layout

We will be showing more of the Pandoravirus assets in a future update.

 

[ArchAngel]

These alien maps have a more UFO alien base feel to them than nuXcom ones.

 

[Latelistener]

Wait until the contest ends. Maybe they'll rework that so it will be more coherent with the winning entry.

New possible alien base sketch:

Spoiler

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Perhaps staff sanity loss on being subjected to fan-fiction puts game back on Lovercraftian track.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Will they publish forbidden romance -genre entries or will those be just plain forbidden.

Talk about opening a can of worms

Oh, you too know about the 3rd act of the age old story where a gal finds herself - and thus happiness on tentacles of slavering extraterrestrial monstrosity?

 

[Shog-goth]

I wonder what we can reasonably expect from the next backer build; Trello development roadmap it's practically useless and barely (or, better, next to nothing) updated, and concrete news are almost non-existent. BB3 should be imminent and we're still completely in the dark, after four months of waiting.

 

[lophiaspis]

As I read these updates I keep asking myself: Does the world really need another XBoxCom? They are all but openly saying "We need to dumb down the game to justify the budget". But what do you even get for all that investment? The new artstyle is blandness squared. Like a cheap Russian knockoff of Mass Effect. Battle Brothers, made by 2 guys, looks far more immersive.

The setting also leaves me wanting. "This time, the aliens are squidgy!" The 'modern humans vs aliens' motif was already perfected in the first X-Com which could draw on the immediate familiarity of the present day setting as well as the richness of UFOlogy lore. All these clones where it's in the future, in the ocean, aliens have taken over, etc. etc. are thus inherently inferior in setting. It's like the first two Terminator movies compared to that crappy one set in the future. The X-Com gameplay style could be applied to so many different settings like inquisitors fighting vampires and werewolves in Medieval Europe, or a straight post-apocalyptic survivor sim. That would be fresh! This is not.

As for the gameplay, on top of seemingly focus testing itself into a halfway-dumbed-down no man's land, it also strikes me as needlessly derivative even if it hadn't been dumbed down. Same-old plodding BattleChess with guns where you watch stupidly long animations of cheap, lame looking models attacking one by one as everyone else just stands around. Totally unrealistic, complete lack of the intensity of a real firefight. Julian Gollop is a pioneer of phase-based combat, why doesn't he impress us with the first good phase-based combat system that's combined with a realistic world simulation? Imagine Frozen Synapse except with X-com levels of detail and realism and immersive graphics. It could be so much more than whatever this is.

I'm just not sold on this at all. Seems like a waste of Gollop's talent. He should be reinventing the genre, not playing catch up to inferior consolized product.

 

[Jimmious]

The core concept of enemies adapting to your play-style IS something that would "reinvent the genre" though. Of course it's been some time since they even talked about it

 

[Togukawa]

The core concept of enemies adapting to your play-style IS something that would "reinvent the genre" though. Of course it's been some time since they even talked about it

The enemy adapting to your play-style concepts no longer fit the game's story.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Yup, I'm completely off this train now. The game is different from what I backed and I can't help but feel that backers are now irrelevant to the game's vision. Our voices are not being listened to when we said we liked the old artstyle better and all the other shit to do with striping out the features we were excited for. I guarentee some of this was done to help the console release along.

 

[UnstableVoltage]

and all the other shit to do with striping out the features we were excited for.

Which features were these?