Think of this as the alien player: If there’s an alien squad commander who’s your foil, that’s what that is. We also have something called the overmind. JS: There’s two levels: There’s what we call the engagement A.I., which is how they choose what abilities they want to use, how they flank you, and how they work together. in the tactical portion of Enemy Unknown? would be interesting.” Can you expand upon the alien A.I. GamesBeat: When asked what he’d like to see developed further in a new version of X-Com, Gollop said, “Better A.I. What we’ve tried to do is give you the ability to pull the camera in to make it feel a little more visceral at times and to pull the camera out to give you that tactical overview.
#XCOM UFO DEFENSE FREE#
But that’s really the extent of the camera control free camera has very limited value. The player also has the ability to zoom the map out. When you go into aiming view over the shoulder, that’s when the camera will swoop down. To combat that, we have a fixed camera with 90-degree rotations on the D-pad. JS: He’s absolutely right: Camera control and disorientation is a major concern in games like ours. Are you limited in that way throughout the entire mission, or do you have free reign to spin the camera around? In the demo video, I saw what looked like a fixed view that zoomed in when performing certain actions. GamesBeat: Gollop commented that a 3D camera could create the possibility of disorientation. We keep the indicators a little more general, but they definitely point you in a direction. Our is a little more general because of that whole idea of tension and the unknown - that’s a big part of XCOM. Now, we’re not as specific as Silent Storm. We certainly have that from the original like when aliens are moving around, you’re going to be able to hear the footsteps and if they’re breaking glass or opening doors. Does Enemy Unknown do something similar or stick to the original’s use of audio clues during the alien’s turn? GamesBeat: Can you expand on how sound plays a role in the game? Your description reminds me of Silent Storm, which used visual indicators for sound on the battlefield. It’s not the sort of thing where you’re going to find yourself wandering in the dark, and you’re just in the wrong corner. It’s a living battlefield. Our aliens are sentient beings, and they have the ability to hear the player the player has the ability to hear them. Our aliens aren’t just wandering around out there. You don’t want the game to be difficult or tedious to play, and we have a lot of ways to keep the player always engaged in the game. That’s something that we think gamers are excited about and looking for, and we’re seeing that renaissance right now with games.
That’s not that common nowadays, and that’s something that we embrace. And obviously we can manage that aspect through the different difficulty levels.Īnd the fact that you can lose XCOM makes it a bit of an oddball. We have a game that openly embraces the idea of challenge as a selling point, and I think you see a lot of games doing that now. JS: Challenge - and this isn’t exactly what he was referring to - is a part of the design in XCOM. Do you feel that Enemy Unknown has avoided that pitfall? GamesBeat: Gollop discussed difficulty in turn-based games and “the temptation to make things big and complex and therefore ultimately a bit dull.” He commented that missions in X-Com: Terror from the Deep were too difficult, long, and tedious.
My goal with XCOM was to take the original and make it for the modern day. And the fact of the matter is that if you can make something more accessible without losing depth, then that’s obviously an improvement in quality. People are skeptical about that word.īut any designer worth anything knows that accessibility is important. It was kind of nice to have him say that because, obviously in the position I’m in, accessibility sometimes comes across as a dirty word. Jake Solomon: Of course, he’s absolutely right. Can you expand on how Enemy Unknown approaches accessibility? GamesBeat: Gollop first said that he would like to see accessibility addressed in a remake. Three top investment pros open up about what it takes to get your video game funded.