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2 months ago
Feature: Red and black magic
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…
2 years ago
X-Com spiritual successor Phoenix Point is doing $100k per month in pre-orders
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…
4 years ago
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…
Ooooh: X-COM Creator Julian Gollop Announces New ‘Turn-Based Tactical Combat Game’
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…
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…
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…
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…
5 years ago
Feature: Big Bad Boss Wizards
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…
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…
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…
Feature: Elegant chaos
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…
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.
Feature: "Turn-based strategy games can actually be successful and popular"
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…
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…
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…
Feature: Xcomeback
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…
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…
6 years ago
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.
Feature: Guest Starring XCOM's Jake Solomon
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…
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.…
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