There’s always a gamble with Julian Gollop. Whenever I’ve been lucky enough to meet the designer behind the original X-Com, I’ve felt like the student to a mild-mannered teacher - the kind who makes you lean in to hear, rather than bellows for you to listen.
Boot up one of his games, though, and he becomes a crafty casino manager, rubbing his hands in glee as he watches you offer up your watch and wedding ring through the grainy CCTV cameras.
]]>Snapshot Games, lead by David Kaye and X-Com creator Julian Gollop, is a runaway success. Or at least I would think $100k a month in pledges would give a game studio some breathing room. But Snapshot isn't sleeping at night. The prevalence of cheap games and promotional bundles has the studio spooked because, while this is a time of incredibly bounties for consumers, not every game can have the financial safety net of, say, Sea of Thieves. This makes creating a game of the scale of Phoenix Point exceptionally perilous.
]]>Julian Gollop might be returning to strategic and tactical extraterrestrial combat with Phoenix Point, but the designer of the original X-COM has already rebooted one of his creations from yesteryear. Chaos Reborn [official site], based on 1985's Chaos: The Battle of Wizards, is a game about lobbing spells at opposing mages, with an emphasis on summoning creatures to do turn-based battle. The game has been out of Early Access for a while but an update has just landed and it's a big one: a new (optional) Law mode has been added, which removes most of the probability checks that are central to combat and casting.
]]>Yer actual breaking news (by which I mean I currently have few details but wanted to inform you as soon as possible because I am very excited). Julian Gollop, legendary co-creator of the X-COM series, plus Laser Squad, Chaos and most recently Chaos Reborn, just revealed the next game from his Snapshot Studios. We only have a name, Phoenix Point, and the following description:
"Turn based tactical combat - world based strategy."
Please tell me that means what I think it means. Is Mister X-COM doing a new, if unofficial, X-COM? Have approximately 37 Christmases all come at once?
]]>Newborns are gross and... I had planned to start this post about Chaos Reborn [official site] now having a demo with some kind of gag about how reborns are surely even grosser, so it's probably better to be visiting the game a month after launch. Then I remembered that reborn dolls are A Thing and just so uncanny and now I'm too distracted looking at those eerie little effigies while admiring the artistry and... I wish Pip were around this morning to talk me down out of this. Chaos Reborn has a demo now, okay, and a new update recently hit too.
]]>Just a PSA, as we already mentioned this a few weeks before it happened: Chaos Reborn [official site], the successfully Kickstarted remake of/sequel to classic Spectrum wizard-bothering strategy/bluffing game Chaos, has left Early Access and gotten a full Steam release. Much as I can't help but include "OMG made by the guy who invented X-COM" excitements in any coverage, I really should stress that Chaos Reborn is a clever and tense game of magical battles in its own right.
]]>I've started to feel a degree of sadness when games leave early access and embrace a full release. It's like watching your kids get older and go to college - there's that point where, one day, their growing up is done. You know who they're going to be. There's pride, sure, but all the what-ifs are over and done with. Julian Gollop's turn-based wizard-battler Chaos Reborn [official site] (currently on Steam Early Access), for instance, is no longer a great unknown - the X-COM co-creator's latest (and first independent) game will be released on Steam at the end of the month. It's not that its journey is over, but the guessing and hoping stage is. That great question which has floated around PC parts for years - what would it be like if Julian Gollop made a new game? - is answered.
]]>Slow and steady wins the race. No wild promises, but plenty of apparently practical plans for the future, has long been X-COM creator Julian Gollop's approach with his Kickstarted comeback, Chaos Reborn [official site] (currently on Steam Early Access). While it sadly doesn't seem to attract quite the same adulation/scrutiny as other returning 90s devs' crowdfunded career reboots, what it has done is reliably get on with things, meeting its initial promises one-by-one. So here we are with the first components of its singleplayer mode - perhaps the strategic wizard-battler's biggest break with its multiplayer-only, Spectrum ZX past. On the one hand, that's probably what X-COM fans want more than anything (other than a true blue X-COM follow-up, of course). On the other hand, what is chess without a human opponent? All depends on structure - how can a series of disconnected, turn-based battles with random spells be made into a meaningful campaign?
Important note - I've chosen not to resummarise Chaos Reborn yet again, so please read this or this if you're entirely unfamiliar with it.
]]>Remember Chaos Reborn [official site]? That turn-based wizard-on-wizard combat game from X-Com co-creator Julian Gollop? Successfully Kickstarter-funded last year, it's just now got itself a major hit of multiplayer in the form of a new "Classic Chaos" mode.
Which by any other name is essentially Chaos Reborn for fans of minimalism. Here's how it works: Each player controls a wizard outfitted with a standard staff and gear, along with a random grab-bag of spells. In anticipation of the mode's release, the team has introduced a separate league competition specific to Classic Chaos players.
]]>My word, check you out, Chaos Reborn [official site]. Don't you get bigger and prettier every time I take a look at you? I quite like the stark, neon outlines it used to depict its assorted bestiary back in the old prototype, then I liked the later move to Fantasy-Tron-With-Figurines, and now I like the ornate, characterful land its latest Early Access update presents even more. X-COM co-creator Julian Gollop's Chaos Reborn always felt like a boardgame in videogame's clothing, but its tailor has done so fine a job this time that it's increasingly hard to see the boardgame beneath it all. Also new as of this update is a whole lot more equipment stuff, so you can unlock customise your wizard as you play. In other words, the metagame has begun.
]]>In the fag-end of 2014 I managed to have a chat with X-COM creator Julian Gollop about the (early access) release version of his new game Chaos Reborn, but as the many demands of a festive season hosted at home hurtled towards me I flat-out ran out of time to give the game itself more than a cursory look. Now that I no longer need worry about which brand of cranberry sauce is best, putting tinsel high enough that a toddler can't hang herself on it and whether those vacuum-packed chestnuts are a substitute for fresh ones, I've been able to put good time into Gollop's remake of classic Spectrum turn-based strategy game Chaos. Here's what I made of it.
]]>Chaos Reborn has been in early access for entire WEEKS now. Two (2) of them. That means it's Christmas update o'clock and Santa Gollop will be wanging a single player mode as well as the ability to summon a rat pack down your digital chimney.
That analogy went wrong, but I'm kind of committed to it at this point.
]]>Well, he eventually rebooted and remade war of wizards Spectrum classic Chaos Reborn, which I've had a lot of fun with over the last few days, and which took to Steam Early Access yesterday. You can read more about that here. But what happened to the co-creator of X-COM, Laser Squad, Magic and Mayhem, Rebelstar and more over the last ten years or so? While so many long-standing developers have seen their stars rise and rise, Julian Gollop seemed to fall out of sight. In this concluding part of my big interview with him, we talk about where he's been, why he turned to Kickstarter for his comeback, how he was doing Early Access long before it ever existed, his thoughts on latter-day X-COMlikes such as Xenonauts, Invisible Inc and Mordheim, and the pressing question of whether we'll ever see a new X-COM or Laser Squad=style game with him at the helm.
]]>X-COM creator Julian Gollop did have plans for his own new version of the legendary strategy game, but abandoned them in the wake of 2K's well-received XCOM. "I seriously considered that before Firaxis announced their XCOM," he told RPS in an interview published today, "but of course once they announced it I thought, well it’d be a hopeless cause because it’s just not going to get the same traction."
"I may have been completely wrong in thinking this by the way," he added. When I suggested that he'd probably have succeeded nonetheless, he added that "I probably could have. I don't know." The Laser Squad and Chaos developer, who yesterday released wizard-battling strategy remake/sequel Chaos Reborn on Steam Early Access, hasn't entirely ruled out an X-comeback of his own, however. "Well, we’ll see. Got to finish Chaos first."
I think it's on all of us reading this to let him know below that that a new Gollop-made XCOMlike is far, far from a hopeless cause, eh? Also below: the game Julian Gollop almost made instead of Chaos Reborn.
]]>Today, X-COM creator Julian Gollop's new game Chaos Reborn launches on Steam Early Access. The Laser Squad dev ran a successful Kickstarter for the remake of his ZX Spectrum wizard-battler earlier this year, but he was by no means convinced that he'd pull it off. "It was a bit scary," he told me in an interview last week (and available in full here). "The biggest problem with Kickstarter is the fact that you are making promises based on not very much."
]]>After some time out of sight, X-COM creator Julian Gollop returned earlier this year, with a successful Kickstarter for a remake of/spiritual sequel to his beloved Spectrum strategy game, Chaos. (That being the one where wizards battle each other to death, with the help of various summoned beasties). An early, multiplayer-only version of Chaos Reborn takes to Steam Early Access today, so ahead of that I had a chat with the Laser Squad dev about how it all happened, what's changed, how much of a purist he is about his old work, his thoughts on Kickstarter and what's planned for the forthcoming singleplayer mode.
]]>X-COM creator Julian Gollop making a reimagine-o-sequel to another of his olde turn-based tactical games sounds like something we'd post about all the time, but how much is there to say between the end of a Kickstarter and the inevitable early access launch? For the seven months since our last post, Snapshot Games have worked on Chaos Reborn, and now they're almost ready for that next step. Chaos Reborn will launch onto Steam Early Access on December 9th, announces a colourful new trailer filled with monsters, wizards, and wizards attacking monsters.
]]>We live in a world where X-Com creator Julian Gollop can put a project onto Kickstarter and have its confetti parade success or outright failure come right down to the wire. I'm not sure how to feel about that. In the end, though, Chaos Reborn's crowdfunding drive succeeded and then some, which I suppose means the world and I are cool. For now.
]]>Once upon a time Julian Gollop was one of the principle minds behind the original X-Com. Yes, with a dash. A dollop of Gollop's design wizardry spawned a legendary strategy series, and now - somewhat fittingly, I suppose - he's making a game about actual wizards. Chaos Reborn is mere days away from casting off its mortal Kickstarter, so Gollop and I are going to play a few rounds of a recent prototype while discussing the ups and downs of running a Kickstarter, the power (and lack thereof) of legacy, what made people fall so madly in love with X-Com, and which of said secret ingredients Chaos Reborn does and doesn't apply. Expect a heady brew of history and reflection with a powerful note of fuuuuuuture. We're kicking off at 10 AM PT/6 PM BST.
Update: We're done! And we ended up roping in a special guest: XCOM: Enemy Unknown lead designer Jake Solomon. What followed were some great Chaos Reborn matches followed by an excellent discussion between two of the brightest minds in the turn-based strategy business. Catch it all below.
]]>Statistically speaking, you are probably not Ken Levine. That's fine. I'm not him, either. And neither is Graham. But thanks to all the silicon and electricity and stuff, you can at least be a bit like him. One of the ways in which he's been special recently is in the role of cheerleader for the Chaos Reborn Kickstarter, where he's been championing Julian Gollop's return. He has already played (or should that now be 'Let's Played'?) the hexy beast, and now you can too. Head here to grab the time-limited prototype of the strategic wiz thing, and bring some friends.
]]>13 days and $65,000 to go - that's the scores on the doors for X-COM creator Julian Gollop's Kickstarted Chaos remake (which I previewed here). Not a bad situation for the turn-based wizard battler to be in, given it's already $115k to the good, but a photo finish looks likely. The game's also up on Greenlight now, so you know what to do if you're excited about it.
There've been eight updates since the project went live a few weeks back, and it's heartening to see that they primarily focus on explaining features and concepts. Also one of them has a unicorn with a sword for a horn, so big bonus points for that.
]]>Chaos Reborn is the next game from Julian Gollop, lead creator of the original X-COM: UFO Defense - the greatest videogame of all time. This is a remake of and sequel to Gollop's earlier, magical duelling game Chaos: The Battle of Wizards. It It takes to Kickstarter today, but unlike other nostalgia-led projects, it's been in active development for some time already. I played a prototype recently, and I have this to say about it.
]]>The old people who remember and love Chaos will doubtless soon be pointing younger folk at Chaos Reborn, which is to be a remake of the original by that genius Julian Gollop (who once gave me an unopened copy of Laser Squad for the C64, which I still treasure, despite not having seen a functional Commodore 64 in perhaps twenty years). The muscular news sentinels of US Gamer spotted that Mr Gollop has been writing about progress on a multiplayer demo of the new game, with an estimate of "soon" for its delivery unto the internet. Soon! That's means it might just be closer than ages away.
]]>It is, however, only a screenshot of placeholder art for the X-COM co-creator's remake of wizard wars classic Chaos, but it is nonetheless a fine thing to see this new vision of the landmark Speccy game taking shape.
]]>I need to set aside a couple of hours to have a thorough read of Julian Gollop's ongoing design plans for his Chaos remake - he's sharing a remarkable amount on his Gollop Games blog. Today though, I take the easy route - monkey see previously unrevealed concept art for the original X-COM/UFO, monkey must post about it. Because said concept art features, as well as some very different looks for X-COM's familiar rogues gallery (e.g. what I think might be an Ethereal design has big thighs) there are some never-before-seen additions. Including what appears to be a giant mutant rabbity thing.
]]>If Julian Gollop keeps up his current rate of posting about the planned Chaos reboot/remake/sequel, it is entirely possible I'll be linking to him every single day until the game releases.
I am just fine with that.
Now, he's put up a reasonably fulsome feature list, spell and creature roster and details of platforms. Also, he's redesigned his site to use the original Chaos sprites as a background. D'awww.
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