What's your name and position in this project?
Along with Ivan (Bulma at this site) I'm one of the original members of the team so I'm one of the project coordinators.
I mostly work on storyboarding for the project and most of the initial
concepts start off with me, be they weapons, aliens, missions or a host
of other things.
How many people work on it?
Between the project beginning and now we've had
literally dozens of people join and leave the project; communication is
less than easy with members from every part of the world! Currently
we've just moved sites so the team is effectively being recreated from
scratch. So far only the coordinators have found their way to the new codeplex site but once we get around to telling others they're bound to turn up eventually!
What is XCom : Colonisation?
Colonisation is a further expansion of the XCom
timeline that brings a lot of aspects of the other games together and
clarifies a lot of what's come before it. So many people have tried UFO
remakes and parallels but no one really tries to expand on the
franchise so that's what we're doing. This particular game is actually
a prequel to the other titles and effectively it will give the player a
chance to witness the Ethereal genesis story. As the game plays out
we'll see more and more links to the future of this newly evolved alien
race, some more obvious than others. Even the ill-fated Enforcer title
has been borrowed from for Colonisation!
Why are you making XCom : Colonisation?
It doesn't take a genius to see that the fans
want a new XCom and although there are similar titles being released
and a host of projects being worked on by the hardcore XCommers amongst
us, it's just not enough! Like I said previously, most of the projects
we're seeing in development at the moment are more remakes than
expansions on the original timeline. This is why we've decided to make
Colonisation. It's not an easy undertaking but if we can provide the
fans with a new XCom game true to the original franchise, it'll all be
worth it!
What's the background story of XCom : Colonisation?
As I said, Colonisation is a prequel to UFO and
other XCom titles and so it takes place before any of the games we
already know. Significantly before the original games in fact! Any XCom
fan will be able to quote to perfection the UFO end game. That is of
course the alien brain claiming that Mars was once a paradise like
earth and that it was they who seeded Earth all those years ago.
Colonisation is set approximately 65million years before UFO and is
played out on that paradise planet that the brain spoke of. In its
simplest form, the game follows a human-alien civil war on Mars but
there is of course much more to it than that! During the course of the
game the player will get to see exactly what the brain was lying about
and what was true. It's going to be a real eye opener to anyone who's
played the original games! A more in depth background story can be
found in the Project Colonisation forums on this website.
How far along are you?
Currently the programming side of the game is
going along very well; we already have a working battlescape demo and a
very early and limited Martian Geoscape. Both are either already
downloadable via links in the Colonisation forum or they soon will be
once the move to Codeplex is complete. Graphics are a big and ongoing
concern at the moment as of course games have moved on leaps and bounds
since Enemy Unknown! While the 3D and 2D artists we have now are
fantastic at what they do we need a lot more to get the visuals of the
game to the same point as the code and unfortunately people do judge a
book by its cover so it's something I'm very keen to move along with!
What do you view as the core gameplay elements of X-Com?
XCom games have always been crafted around
several very simple but very different elements. The basic two would
have to be the Geoscape for global manipulation and the battlescape for
localised missions. Then we have the base management part of the game
that divided again into a host of other departments. Base construction
was all in the hands of the player as was the hiring and firing of
soldiers and staff alike. Equipment all had to be bought in from
elsewhere in every game to date and vehicles and aircraft needed
ammunition, storage space and every so often repairing and replacing!
Research and Development was a massive part of the game as well,
without it we'd never have made it to Cydonia at all! Researching new
weapons and interrogating captured aliens. Every aspect of every game
was finely interwoven with one or more of the others. I think that's
what made them so endlessly replayable but kept them so simple.
Will XCom : Colonisation improve any gameplay elements? How if so?
Colonisation will stay as true to the original
games as possible, and while that means we won't be making any drastic
changes we will be altering several aspects of the game as well as
including a few new ones. The only major change from UFO : EU to XCom :
Colonisation will be the addition of campaign missions and the removal
of a strictly player determined storyline. Whereas in the original
games certain research led to certain advances which in time led to the
final battle, Colonisation will have many key battles and important
missions as well as the run of the mill encounters that we remember so
well! Some of these missions will be a direct result of the player's
actions; others will occur on a certain date or after a certain level
of technology is reached. Other missions may never even occur in a game
depending how the player progresses! Research and development will not
change significantly but there will be additional facilities owned by
the player solely for the purpose of specific research. These will
range from laser research laboratories and vehicle workshops to genetic
experimentation centres and interrogation cells. The research tree for
Colonisation is much larger than those of the original games with over
forty weapons in just the starting human armoury. Along with these
additions and expansions, Colonisation will also feature over twice as
many aliens as the original games, flying, walking and swimming, this
time nowhere is safe!
Do you think the project will ever turn into a finished game?
I think I can safely speak on behalf of everyone
involved in the project when I say we certainly hope so! It is fun
making the game but it would be an indescribable achievement to see the
Project Colonisation forum move from the special projects department to
the XCom series!
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Latest Comments
That isn't as bad as it sounds though, the human weapons come in batches, so each rifle for example has 5 different models but they'll all be very similar to each other with very minor changes to a standard base model.
Alien weapons won't be the same, they'll more than likely be a standard one off mass produced gun, fit for the alien hordes. There will still be a lot of additional weapons to produce though. Human developments, alien developments, we're easily looking at dozens more...
We aren't trying to kid ourselves I don't think and we do realise that if we get to the end of this project it won't be for a good few years yet! But we also don't expect to produce something of S3 or Aftermath quality. This is a fan game and its true to the originals. I hated the way Apocalypse look and I still do, I'd much rather they kept slightly more loyal to the original games with the graphics.
The bonus of making this game the way we are is that we can patch it endlessly so even if we finish it and it looks cack and has no sound we can keep working on it and releasing new source every few weeks. I would also imagine that once people get to see a working game that rings true to XCom we'll find ourselves with a lot more interest and help!
Posted by The Veteran 28 Aug 2006 - 1:09pm
About those aliens.
Well, if you all recall, the 1st and 2nd game had about 11 aliens each. In this one, we're thinking of going for 22-23 aliens. And 16 of those comes from across the game series.
UFO, TFTD, Enforcer and a couple from Interceptor.
Some of them have different names and forms and some just have different forms. So you can really get a sense of 65 million years of evolution.
This also means we have about 6-7 new aliens appearing.
Posted by AlanatXcomHQ 27 Aug 2006 - 4:26pm
Automation, automation, automation....
The only way to drive the programmer time down (beyond programming practices suitable for small development teams), is to have a suitably artificially intelligent development environment. Artist time is even harder.
Regrettably, I don't see one out there even for programming. So I started coding one (with XCOM-likes as one target) in C++. It's vaporware right now, even with using the Boost library moderately.
Posted by zaimoni 27 Aug 2006 - 1:32pm
Posted by Slaughter 27 Aug 2006 - 10:21am
Posted by The Veteran 27 Aug 2006 - 1:00am