Xenonauts

[karthink]

Neither a Google site search nor a forum search revealed a thread about everyone's favorite faithful X-COM indie remake. Let's fix this gross omission, shall we?

Ten minutes of the alpha demo convinced me to throw my money at their Kickstarter--and I've never even played X-COM!*

This game is brilliant, it's dripping with atmosphere and everything from the Geoscape to the various management screens feels dark and desperate. The ground combat is very tense with music to match. My only similar experience is with JA 2, but Xenonauts goes above and beyond in making you feel like a commander on the battlefield. Night missions are a treat--every corner and door is cause for trepidation. The art is utilitarian but very crisp. I haven't played any isometric 2D game that looks this good at high resolutions. There are multiple levels to ground combat (don't know if this was in X-COM), so it should be possible to station your sniper on a roof, for instance. Not sure how z-levels work yet, but stairs inside buildings do exist.

To me, the highlight of it all is the UI design. It's very... functional. It's mostly just text now, but everything feels right and nothing is more than two clicks away. I don't play turn based games or management sims often, but I knew exactly what each button did within seconds. There's just enough controls on the screen during combat and they're all obvious; I was prepared for a tutorial or trial-by-fire phase.

Of course, it's in pre-alpha, so chunks of equipment/vehicle art are missing along with descriptions of some research projects, and the animations could use a lot of work. The font is rather small, too. But it's already at the point where you stop noticing these things once you're twenty minutes in.

It's exciting to think about what this game will be like with better animations, greater variety in environments (ooh, forests, tropics) and a slicker UI.

* Okay, so I have played X-COM, but I never got past the first few encounters. That UI is draining.

[b0rsuk]

They funded their project in record time at Kickstarter - 100%, or $50,000 in 56 hours. Then they made a blunder. They announced Linux/Mac support at $100,000 and female characters at $100,000. Look below for an example of how it shouldn't be done:

EDIT 2 - just to explain our reasoning behind the female soldiers being at $200k, as there seems to be some confusion. We think $200k is an ambitious but achievable goal for the Kickstarter, given the response so far, so we put potentially the most interesting feature there to try and galvanise interest. We don't want people to just lose interest now the project is funded, so we're trying to spread our goals out so we don't achieve them all in the first week.
That's not to say if we "only" get $120k-$130k that we would definitely not put female soldiers in the game before release...but we want there to be something worth celebrating if / when we reach the big milestones (although there's less cause for celebration now I've told you we might do it anyway even if we don't hit $200k).

People fund kickstarter projects in part because of transparency. They like being told they need X money to develop feature Y. This time, they've been told that the goal for 20ish female face sprites has been set at $200,000 basically because developers feel like it and want to keep people funding.

I'm afraid that's not how it works. It's telling people they're being manipulated. If there's a $150,000 gap between no female faces and female faces for soldiers (again, 20ish faces, and some audio files because most armor types would cover both genders so much as to make them indistinguishable)... well, it sounds fishy. They're confusing backer rewards with development costs.

Unsurprisingly, the funding speed has taken a nosedive.

[karthink]

This is a very good point. Goldhawk appears to have failed to understand why people are drawn to kickstarters. I hope they do enough damage control before it's too late, though. It would be a shame for this game to not reach its potential.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Er. Wow. I'm feeling less and less good about buying that Xenonauts alpha almost a year ago.

Not having female characters as a basic feature in the first place is...pretty shitty for various reasons. Looking at the original X-COM featureset and deciding, nah, we don't need them.

[alset85]

Er. Wow. I'm feeling less and less good about buying that Xenonauts alpha almost a year ago.

Not having female characters as a basic feature in the first place is...pretty shitty for various reasons. Looking at the original X-COM featureset and deciding, nah, we don't need them.

I agree with you if all they need to do is add female faces, but if they need new models for the battlescape, I don't think that's fair. That's a LOT of work without much payoff.

[karthink]

I think anyone who's played the latest alpha will agree that there's a lot of critical stuff to be fixed, and more yet to be polished before working in what is basically a costly cosmetic addition. Some immersion-breaking stuff I'm not even sure they can fix because of the sprite based graphics, like guns firing from the center of the tile and not from the muzzle.

EDIT: There's a new update explaining the stretch goals. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/225370
The good part is we decide the stretch goals, the bad part is they're not commensurate with the increase in funding. The rest of the funds go into forming a physical studio, which should provide tangible benefits like better/faster development of features and bug-fixes.

[b0rsuk]

I agree with you if all they need to do is add female faces, but if they need new models for the battlescape, I don't think that's fair. That's a LOT of work without much payoff.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

For the female soldiers, these will appear on the Soldier Equip screens with female faces and more feminine Basic Armour art (all other armour is too bulky to show off the differences between the genders). In the ground combat, they will appear the same as the male soldiers, except for female sound effects (without going into too much detail, this is due to sprite issues).

The main problem with this is actually the portraits - our character artist is extremely overworked and doesn't have time to do the 20-30 new female portraits we'll need. We're doing some tests to see if other artists can match his style before we confirm this stretch goal. If one of them can do so convincingly, female soldiers will be go.

I've sent them pretty much exactly the stuff that was in my post above. About manipulating people and why people fund kickstarters. With thousands of backers, I'm not sure if they'll read it.

And by the way, there's a new Kickstarter update:

The plan we're looking at is that we'll just have a straightforward vote on the stretch goals, which will be at $75k, $100k, $150k and $200k etc. The feature with the most votes goes in at the $75K stretch goal, and the feature with the second most votes goes in at $100k. This is probably a better idea than us trying to guess what features will excite you the mst.


These stretch goals will raise more money than the actual cost of implementing each feature. The reason for this is our primary reason for raising money beyond the $50,000 goal is so we can form a physical studio.
(...)

(emphasis mine)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/225370


Uh oh.
They are going to need more damage control. Is it a Xenonauts kickstarter, or a Goldhawk Interactive kickstarter ? Someone should explain it to them.

[deano2099]

I think anyone who's played the latest alpha will agree that there's a lot of critical stuff to be fixed, and more yet to be polished before working in what is basically a costly cosmetic addition. Some immersion-breaking stuff I'm not even sure they can fix because of the sprite based graphics, like guns firing from the center of the tile and not from the muzzle.

The bug fixes will need to be done anyway. I imagine if they set one of the stretch goals as "fixing critical stuff" they'd be in even more trouble. They have the money to fix that stuff anyway. The extra money should pay for extra features. They were already pretty much perverting the point of Kickstarter with this anyway (they'd have raised enough funds to finish it by just sticking up a regular pre-order, they're on the bandwagon) and it does make me a bit uncomfortable.

You're not funding anything here. You're pre-ordering the game and extra goodies. This is basically the equivalent of them saying "We'll add extra features X Y and Z if we get over A B and C pre-orders".

Not sure what this whole physical studio thing is about either. At this point, most pledges will be a lost sale on launch. They'd get the money for that when the game comes out anyway...

[Moraven]

Should have stuck to the vague... more money = more content, more art assets, etc.

[soldant]

I too was really surprised by this Kickstarter... the entire point of pre-ordering the game (and pre-ordering isn't really that cheap, I think it cost me over $20 or something when I pre-ordered) was to fund its development. Now they've got a Kickstarter to fund its development again. Um... what? The talk about starting a physical studio is also more worrying. In any event I won't donate to the Kickstarter. I pre-ordered, I've already funded development, I'm not giving them more money to start a physical studio.

It's a shame that they're screwing things up with this Kickstarter because the game itself is true X-COM and sticks to that core experience very closely... at least based on what we've seen so far. But as others have pointed out the alpha still has a significant amount of issues and their lack of progress on AI is disturbing, and the Firaxis attempt is looking better with each passing interview...

I can deal with not having some of the "stretch goals" (like female soldiers or whatever) but although what they have is fairly playable it feels nowhere near approaching beta or release stages. It seems like they've got a year or more to go.

[Ernesto]

Who said that kickstarting pays exactly for the listed features? I don't see the problem in funding your startup with the money. You do want them to be able to support the game after release, do you? It's unreasonable to collect just enough money to get the job done.
Look at it that way: Through Kickstarter they can offer some features they didn't even consider implementing at all. But they are willing to implement them, if the price is right.

[soldant]

I don't see the problem in funding your startup with the money.

We're funding a game with pre-orders. Xenonauts has been in the pre-order phase for a while now. All of a sudden they need more money from a Kickstarter. Prior to that it was always "No, we're not going to do X because it's too much trouble" (e.g. female soldiers) but it's obvious they've seen the potential for cash in other Kickstarters and are jumping on the bandwagon. And that bandwagon is under some pretty heavy strain.

[Nalano]

We're funding a game with pre-orders. Xenonauts has been in the pre-order phase for a while now. All of a sudden they need more money from a Kickstarter. Prior to that it was always "No, we're not going to do X because it's too much trouble" (e.g. female soldiers) but it's obvious they've seen the potential for cash in other Kickstarters and are jumping on the bandwagon. And that bandwagon is under some pretty heavy strain.

It's a gold rush, and most of those who attempt will end up failing.

But we knew that... right?

[agentorange]

Let's talk about the game. Not the funding, and the lack of the un-needed in the first place female sprites. They're an independent company, they don't know how to double speak in order to keep people satisfied. And if they had PR people who could do that you would bitch about them hiring PR people.

Personally I love the new Interceptor system; they've taken one of the few elements that was lacking in the first game and have made it one of the most enjoyable aspects of the over-world. I like that you have to take into consideration a number of variables - like do you want to risk blowing the UFO to pieces with a with a powerful missile, or try to keep the UFO in decent condition so as to have the best chance of recovering technology, but in doing so risk the UFO getting away. The art design in general is very appealing to me, they've kept that all encompassing foreboding atmosphere of the original, and have actually made it darker by removing the slightly camp B sci-fi feel that the original had going on; I'm not against the cartoony style, but I think with the other two upcoming X-Com games heading more in that direction, it's nice to have Xenonauts acting as a counter-balance. The last time I played the game, the AI in the ground combat was sorely lacking, so I can't comment much on that, but I did enjoy the variety of weapons you had at your disposal, from shotguns to sniper rifles, it made the troopers feel more like individuals when I assigned them weapons with specific uses (the original kind of had that, but was basically rifle guy or rocket launcher guy).

[soldant]

I like that you have to take into consideration a number of variables - like do you want to risk blowing the UFO to pieces with a with a powerful missile, or try to keep the UFO in decent condition so as to have the best chance of recovering technology, but in doing so risk the UFO getting away.

That was (kind of) part of the original as well; if the UFO sustained significant damage from having a super powerful weapon it blight blow it away entirely or it might hit the reactors, blowing a significant chunk out of the UFO and decreasing resources. But yeah, the new interceptor system in general is pretty good. I don't like how it controls though.

[Ernesto]

I just love the graphics, the setting and the atmosphere. It's the reason I pre-ordered. Can't say much about the gameplay because I played it only once so far.

[bonkers]

They announced Linux/Mac support at $100,000 and female characters at $100,000. Look below for an example of how it shouldn't be done:

Thank you for mentioning that. I have been very interested in Xenonauts but decided to only backup PC projects with Mac and Linux support at least. I will observe it now more closely, maybe they can convince me to throw my money in. A lot of people are asking for my money these days...

[caljohnston]

Thank you for mentioning that. I have been very interested in Xenonauts but decided to only backup PC projects with Mac and Linux support at least. I will observe it now more closely, maybe they can convince me to throw my money in. A lot of people are asking for my money these days...

Check again. There's a new update saying that they'll use a survey to determine which features to implement. Linux/mac support is only one of the many options. Kinda odd. IMO they should've just stuck to the original goals once they announced them.

With regard to the game, I've only tried the tactical combat so far, but it's turned out to be very underwhelming compared to JA2 1.13.

I'll still buy it when they release it if it looks like it's in reasonable shape though.

[b0rsuk]

They are saying they want their own physical studio because it will make it easier to work on the project instead of working remotely. Sounds plausible. I will probably fund it, depends on how my finances turn out.

Yes, I very much like the new art direction. Interception screen looks interesting and pretty. They could really use some shadow system on tactical map, though. It looks too dry. Their artist is skilled, but has issues drawing faces. No, I don't mind many of them look depressed. There's just not much variety in a) facial expressions b) facial features, look at the faces in war room for example.

I'm slightly disappointed it's only stylised for cold war era. I mean that USSR and USA are cooperating. It would be more colorful if you had to deal with UFOs and tensions between the 2 superpowers complicated things.

[bonkers]

Check again.

I know. That's why I wrote that I will observe it more closely ;) But yeah, it's a bit odd with the poll. Like they don't know what would be best for the game or make sense from a financial point of view.