Rock, Paper, Shotgun

This is interesting. Or rather, promises as being interesting and I’d like to bring it to those who wish to make it interest-ing’s attention. Julian Gollop has posted on his forums saying that he’s considering making splendid play-by-e-mail game Laser Squad Nemesis free to play instead of the current subscription-styled model. This means he’s looking around for cheaper server places – perhaps, I suspect, someone volunteering server space – and admins to run it. Gollop’s one of the great unsung creators in the industry and I suspect at least one of the people who are upset about the XCOMisation of his X-COM may be able to offer him a very cheap solution indeed. You’ll find his contact details on the site. While it’s a game which is no longer being developed, this is a rock solid tactical skirmish game that I think would find a whole new audience in a straight free-to-play system. Of course, I’m also wondering what Julian’s doing working at Ubisoft Sofia, but that’s just because I’m nosy. Also, hoping he eventually respond to the mail asking what he makes of XCOM. Hi, Julian!

[This is an odd one. This was the first of these I wrote for PCF, and is really a very different format – there's a large box-out where I go through Gollop's entire history of games, for example, which I've lost here. It's also a straight transcript and – spookily – written in a much more sober style. I've had a quick kick at it to get rid of some of the stiffness, but it does sit a little oddly with its usual tone...]

This isn’t really a post-mortem. From a development side the single most noticeable feature of Laser Squad Nemesis is that it’s constantly being updated and its development cycle is, abstractly, endless. This means that rather than an examination of something in the past, we’re cutting apart something still living: vivisection rather than post-mortem.

LSN was was Codo Technologies first game, for themselves. The Gollop brothers’ previous studio, Mythos games, closed after the ambitious Dreamlands game was cancelled. Disheartened by how they were treated by major publishers, Laser Squad Nemesis was them stepping outside the mainstream system to forge a new path. But what to do?

Read the rest of this entry »