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

[Alienman]

Cool, I'm actually hoping it will be more like Apocalypse than the original.

 

[Infinitron]

Interview with Gollop at Eurogamer reveals details about the development of the original X-COM: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...cancelled-but-development-continued-in-secret

You'll have heard stories before now about great games almost facing cancellation during development, but this one's a little different. The original X-COM, it turns out, was actually, properly canned. Its publisher Microprose was taken over by a new, major shareholder and as part of that process, made the decision to scrap the project with immediate effect.

In this week's episode of Here's A Thing, we'll be telling the story of the three people that decided to disobey these instructions and ensure the game was developed in secret. They did such a good job at this, in fact, that X-COM creator Julian Gollop only found out it had happened 20 years after the fact.

 

[CRD]

The 2AP system is going to make them sell more copies than the few they are going to lose because of it


I don't really like it, but I can understand them. Also, xcom 2 with long war 2 and some other mods is fun a fuck, enough to make people don't give a shit about the AP system.

My main concern though is that modding isn't listed on the campaign and I find it essential for a game like this, but anyway they have my money. I just hope they sell like hotcakes and maybe see in the future a successor with a bigger scope and budget.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

2nd campaign update.

Chitin Armor

Our concept artist, Slavi, is working on the Chitin Armor designs, which are special, exclusive digital in-game items for Fig backers. This armor was made by a legendary alien hunter who then fashioned a fearsome, but effective, set of armour made from the parts of his victims. There will be several variants for different parts of the body, including helmets.

(Note: The armor does not confer any special advantage over other types of armor, but it will make your soldiers look badass).
New Jericho
The New Jericho group have formed a militaristic society that seeks to wipe out every trace of alien existence on the planet.

You can read a Phoenix Project analysis of New Jericho here.

http://www.phoenixpoint.info/new-jericho

Spoiler

New Jericho
By Allen Stroud

--------

We are the last of humanity and we must unite.
The virus came here and broke us because we were divided. The politics of nations, the racism and prejudice, the hubris and selfishness. All of it, left us weak and vulnerable to something unexpected.
They came at us and defeated us. Individually, we are lucky to have survived, to continue to exist as a species.
I refuse to accept survival. Earth is ours, I will not forsake it. We can rebuild and create a future for our children if we raise our heads and work together, accepting our lot and our common cause.
In rebuilding and resisting, we must be vigilant. The alien is subtle and twisted. The blood of the xeno runs in the veins of the weak. Many have accepted corruption in order to live, but they aren’t really survivors, inside they are already dead.
We must liberate them with the gun, the knife and the sword.
Across the world, there are secret bases where people can find safety. We test everyone, screening blood and DNA to ensure there are no infected amongst them. Those who come to us have a chance at a future. Life is hard, but fair, children learn about the what we once had, what we will have again.
I have a plan to defeat the alien. I have faith in the ingenuity of our species. Humanity has defeated every challenge it has ever faced. This is the ultimate test, to defeat an enemy that wishes to supplant us. Only through the our collective will can we overcome what seeks to destroy us.
The night is coming, but we will not go quietly. Only by being brave and loud will we pass through the dark and onwards into a brave new dawn. If we can’t win, we will make an end that carves our fate onto the flesh of our foes, taking them with us into hell.

Tobias West

--------


Phoenix Project Comment:


It was to be expected that in a moment of crisis, those without hope or understanding would gather around leaders who project confidence and some sort of solution to the world’s problems.

An external enemy provides a focus to distract from division and in this sense, the concept of ‘New Jericho’ - a united human nation, created to oppose the alien threat, is in itself a romantic vision of resistance; or would be, if it wasn’t a risk to our very existence.

The leaders of this movement see warfare and military technology as the sole solution to our predicament. Many of them refuse to accept that blunt solutions failed in the past, during the Third World War. There is a cult of personality around them, a belief that they will succeed with the same tactics as others who failed before them.
Tobias West rose to prominence during the 2020s. His security and technology firm, Vanadium Inc developed a respected reputation escorting the world’s largest shipping containers as they criss crossed the globe. West’s people were amongst the first to encounter the mist and its inhabitants. Survivors from Vanadium Inc expeditions quickly became consultants for different countries as they tried to resolve the issue, but, according to West, they weren’t listened to, as national governments preferred to blame and turn on each other instead.

West is American by birth but has cultivated an international reputation, anchoring his business interests in India, East Africa and China. It is this broad cultural experience that makes him charismatic and appealing to those who see no other solution. He served in the US Army before the secession and war, completing two tours in Syria, reaching the rank of Major. After this, he resigned his commission, founded his business and spent much of the next decade abroad. His voting record was right leaning and Libertarian, and he made significant donations to senatorial campaigns prior to the ‘big egg’ incident of 2027, which his company were peripherally involved in, having supplied two security guards to the Halpine-Mcallister oil rig, Echo Gamma 18.

The rise of the New Jericho movement in the last five years has seen West return to people’s attention. His radio and video broadcasts are distributed via any means possible. Live transmission is dangerous, but still something his organisation chooses to risk. Otherwise, recordings on portable formats are taken from settlement to settlement, bringing hope to those who thought they’d been forgotten and abandoned.

At its core, New Jericho retains the Vanadium Inc objective of enhancing humanity’s capacity through technology. Much of the developed resource and research was lost during the war and the difficult years that followed, but the principles were retained and a new generation of scientific thinkers are being drawn to the central hub of the movement.

The aims of New Jericho are useful to us, but there is a need to be cautious when dealing with them. Their manufacturing base for a variety of conventional military hardware is extensive and they have begun research and development into deploying innovative technologies on to the battlefield. However, the wide base of the organisation means a wide spread of conflicting ideas, some of which threaten to splinter them before they can achieve their aims. Their appeal for a ‘united humanity’ hides a prejudice against those they do not define as human.

 

[Jack Dandy]

So we're looking at WW3 and a secession here. Hoping to hear more details about these.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-04-26-there-is-no-plan-b

"There is no Plan B"
Original XCOM dev Julian Gollop is betting people will crowdfund a spiritual successor to his hit strategy game, and his studio's future may be riding on it

Yesterday, Julian Gollop's Snapshot Games launched a Fig campaign for Phoenix Point, a tactical strategy game very much in line with his seminal work in the genre, 1994's XCOM: UFO Defense. The studio set a $500,000 target for the project, and as he told GamesIndustry.biz this week, he needs all of it.

"This is what we budgeted to finish the game to what we think is the absolute minimum necessary standard that will make a good quality strategy game," Gollop said.

The team of eight developers at Snapshot have been working on Phoenix Point for more than a year, but Gollop suggested that effort could go to waste if the crowdfunding campaign isn't successful.

"There is no Plan B. We do not have an alternative plan," Gollop said. "This is an all-or-nothing, make-or-break decision for the studio. But I'm pretty confident we're going to do quite well."

Much of that confidence came from Fig's Backstage Pass program, which allows a group of investors with previous experience on the site an early peek at campaigns and the chance to back them early. The Phoenix Point campaign tested particularly well in this program, with about 30% of people who checked out the campaign going on to back it. That confidence appears to have been well-founded. Within a single day of launching, the game is just over 60% of the way to its goal, with $309,000 in pledges and investments.

"We had approached publishers and investors," Gollop said of the decision to crowdfund the game. "We looked at every possible opportunity we could think of, and for various reasons, we turned down a couple of these other offers. Some of the interest we got from some big publishers was there, but ultimately they didn't want to go ahead with the project, so coming back to crowdfunding seemed like a logical step for us. We would be in control of ownership and the IP in particular for the long term."

So why was crowdfunding a last resort for the project? Gollop said even successful crowdfunding campaigns are generally going to provide smaller development budgets than what publishers could provide, and they originally wanted more money to realize their ambitions for Phoenix Point. Additionally, spending nearly a year talking to publishers while the team worked on the game meant they now have a much more advanced version of the game to help attract backers for a crowdfunding campaign.

The aliens look different, but much of Phoenix Point should be familiar to XCOM fans.

As for why Snapshot went with Fig specifically, Gollop gave two reasons. First, he liked that Fig specialized in video games, while he thinks "tabletop gaming has taken over compared to video games" on Kickstarter. That also no doubt plays into other attractive qualities Gollop mentioned, like Fig's more closely curated selection of projects and a greater level of marketing and PR assistance provided to projects. Finally, Gollop found the site's combination of investment and reward-based backing to be an interesting business model.

It probably didn't hurt that Gollop's first experience with Kickstarter--the 2014 campaign for Chaos Reborn--was considerably more difficult than he'd anticipated. Gollop described it as a real bootstrapping process, but one that informed his decision making when it came time to put together a Phoenix Point crowdfunding campaign.

The big takeaway from Chaos Reborn for Gollop was to focus on what the backers find most important. Unfortunately, there wasn't much agreement on that front for Chaos Reborn. Some of the supporters of that game were fans of Gollop's original 1995 magical duel game Chaos, while others simply wanted something like Hearthstone. There was dissent on whether the single-player or multiplayer mattered more, and whether outcomes should rely heavily on random number generators or almost not at all.

"I think we were a little bit split too much between the potential groups we were trying to cater to," Gollop said. "With Phoenix Point, there's definitely more focus."

Part of that focus comes from some early market research Gollop did after originally announcing Phoenix Point in March of 2016. He sent a survey to subscribers of the project's mailing list asking what they wanted from a new XCOM-style game, and it turned out they had pretty similar ideas.

"We got some interesting feedback," Gollop said. "People were really not interested in multiplayer. They were not interested in a console version. And given these people were likely to be our backers, it gives us a very useful guideline as to where to focus our limited development resources."

It helps that there's some handy reference material available when trying to answer the question of what people would want from a modern XCOM game. Firaxis breathed new life into the franchise with 2012's XCOM: Enemy Unknown and iterated on that last year with XCOM 2. Appropriately enough, just as Firaxis' XCOM was clearly inspired by Gollop's work on the original game, Gollop has found inspiration in Firaxis' efforts. Not only will Phoenix Point incorporate some of the elements that worked well in Firaxis' XCOM revamps, but Gollop cited one of the developer's older games--Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri--as an influence for some of the gameplay elements that will separate Phoenix Point from Firaxis' own XCOM successors.

"It probably deviates most [from Firaxis' XCOM games] on the strategic level of the game," Gollop said. "Phoenix Point is a lot more 4X-y, sort of open-world-y universe where you have different factions and groups, with their own objectives and agendas, technology, their own diplomatic relations, and things will happen in this world regardless of whether the player intervenes or not. It's a much more dynamics, systems-AI-driven world... In some ways, it's actually developed and evolved from ideas we built into XCOM Apocalypse back in 1997."

Gollop's desire to revisit ideas from his previous work shouldn't come as any surprise. After all, much of his career has been spent exploring new offshoots of his previous work, whether it's officially bearing the name of his series like Chaos, Laser Squad, XCOM, and Rebelstar, or simply bearing their DNA, as was the case with the 3DS launch title Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars. And while there's no Plan B for Phoenix Point in the unlikely event the Fig campaign stalls, it's difficult to imagine Gollop changing from that pursuit anytime soon.

"I formed Snapshot to make the games I really wanted to make, my strategy games, particularly my RPG-focused strategy games, XCOM-style games, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars-style games," Gollop said. "Especially after doing Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars at Ubisoft, which was a great project and I really enjoyed. I might well have stayed at Ubisoft had I been able to do similar projects, but it wasn't possible. So I knew I had to do something on my own."

 

[J_C]

It is really hard to resist backing this. Everything seems so promising.

 

[Jack Dandy]

For those interested, there's another tale in the "Stories" section of the website, a cute Lovecraft-style yarn.

http://www.phoenixpoint.info/theoldman

 

[Jimmious]

It is really hard to resist backing this. Everything seems so promising.

 

[J_C]

It is really hard to resist backing this. Everything seems so promising.

But I'm poor.

 

[luinthoron]

My main concern though is that modding isn't listed on the campaign and I find it essential for a game like this, but anyway they have my money. I just hope they sell like hotcakes and maybe see in the future a successor with a bigger scope and budget.

IIRC, Gollop said modding support is something they'd certainly like to have if they can, but it's not an immediate priority.

For those interested, there's another tale in the "Stories" section of the website, a cute Lovecraft-style yarn.

http://www.phoenixpoint.info/theoldman

Certainly hits the Lovecraftian note quite well, very much loved it when I first noticed it after they linked to the other story (http://www.phoenixpoint.info/thehatch) on their Facebook page. I'm surprised they haven't actually mentioned this one anywhere themselves.

 

[Jimmious]

Really nice story again. They build the lore very nicely

 

[Themadcow]

But I'm poor.

Eh? It's like three chargeable handjobs to sailors, maybe four in Hungary - I'm not sure of the local pricing there.

I appreciate that Hungary being landlocked is potentially an issue with the sailor handjob idea.

 

[J_C]

But I'm poor.

Eh? It's like three chargeable handjobs to sailors, maybe four in Hungary - I'm not sure of the local pricing there.

I appreciate that Hungary being landlocked is potentially an issue with the sailor handjob idea.

It's not that I don't have that money now. I just try to resist or buy any new games (or fund them), because I know that I have such a huge backlog, and I have little time to play.

 

[Jimmious]

But I'm poor.

Eh? It's like three chargeable handjobs to sailors, maybe four in Hungary - I'm not sure of the local pricing there.

I appreciate that Hungary being landlocked is potentially an issue with the sailor handjob idea.

It's not that I don't have that money now. I just try to resist or buy any new games (or fund them), because I know that I have such a huge backlog, and I have little time to play.

Pledge OR GTFO

 

[Tzaero]

IIRC, Gollop said modding support is something they'd certainly like to have if they can, but it's not an immediate priority.

Have you got a source for this one?

 

[ArchAngel]

But I'm poor.

Eh? It's like three chargeable handjobs to sailors, maybe four in Hungary - I'm not sure of the local pricing there.

I appreciate that Hungary being landlocked is potentially an issue with the sailor handjob idea.

It's not that I don't have that money now. I just try to resist or buy any new games (or fund them), because I know that I have such a huge backlog, and I have little time to play.

Well game is coming out October or November 2018, you have plenty of time to clear your backlog until then.

 

[ArchAngel]

Soo this is even more


Enemies will be able to hit your body parts as well (like you can theirs) and it will provide different penalties depending on what is hit (just like in old Xcom ). And you will be able to heal different body parts, not just total HP

 

[Themadcow]

• When you said 4+ squads, that means the starting lineup is 4?
  
  Four is the lower limit for deploying a squad, not a starting limit. Squad Sizes can be as high as 16, depending on the transport available and the type of mission. A more limiting factor on squad size would be the scarcity of recruits and ongoing injuries (or mental traumas) of soldiers.
  
  
• Will psychology play a role as well, such as panic and fear?
  Fear, panic and insanity will all play a role. Permanent mental traumas may affect the abilities, behaviour and reliability of soldiers in combat.

*looks at watch*

Just 18 or so months to go...



*looks at watch again*

 

[Grotesque]

What's the word on the economic/base/staff management part of the game?

Every installment in the franchise and the clones only dumbed downed and simplified this part of the game when it should've been otherwise.
Self manufacturing items and selling them to fund other projects and paying your staff was rewarding as fuck as well as having to deal with base logistical problems.

Also this Gollop makes promises during this campaign of a game that needs 10 times the budget he's asking for but the fanboys are too blinded by hype to ponder on this issue.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Hopefully a modder will introduce Time units, 320x240 resolution, 2d sprites and clunky UI for all those Time units fans.

It's 320x200, you dumb fuck.

 

[Irenaeus]

Also this Gollop makes promises during this campaign of a game that needs 10 times the budget he's asking for but the fanboys are too blinded by hype to ponder on this issue.

Sounds like every kickstarter ever.

 

[ArchAngel]

What's the word on the economic/base/staff management part of the game?

Every installment in the franchise and the clones only dumbed downed and simplified this part of the game when it should've been otherwise.
Self manufacturing items and selling them to fund other projects and paying your staff was rewarding as fuck as well as having to deal with base logistical problems.

Also this Gollop makes promises during this campaign of a game that needs 10 times the budget he's asking for but the fanboys are too blinded by hype to ponder on this issue.

He said it will be simulated and more similar to UFO. You will be able to have multiple bases. We don't know the details about how will base building work or how complex the manufacturing will be.
We know that you will need to either ally with one of the factions or completely destroy/take them over to get access to their tech to finish the game. Their tech will influence your options in both base building and tactical game.
There will of course be researching tech.

 

[ArchAngel]

Also due to having 3 factions and not being able to ally with all (as they will fight vs each other and expect you to help them) and each of them will have a different solution to dealing with Pandora virus, this will be first Xcom like game with multiple endings.

 

[luinthoron]

IIRC, Gollop said modding support is something they'd certainly like to have if they can, but it's not an immediate priority.

Have you got a source for this one?

Actually looked it up earlier but could not add it to the post anymore and didn't want to double post either.

From the reddit AMA:

Modding is something we want to do, but it is quite a big thing to support, and will depend on funding.

There will definitely be some modding support but we are not sure to what extent we can support it yet.