KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[Jimmious]

I like it. It somehow have me a vibe of the book "The Swarm" which I enjoyed a lot

 

[MRY]

I never thought the world would end like this. I grew up in the nineteen eighties. I lived through Reagan, Brezhnev, Bush, Gorbachev and the rest. In those days and the days before we believed in a nuclear Armageddon. East against West, Soviets versus Senators where both sides built enough weapons to destroy the Earth many times over. But the world couldn’t hold its breath forever. The dollar defeated the bomb and we learned to get along, provided we could smell profit in it. Oil, gas and coal became the fuel of nations. We took out spades and picks to the ground and dug out the heart blood of the land, letting it fill the bellies of our cars, our trucks and our planes. Our machines drank and drank, sending us far from terra firma to feed our addictions. All the while, great black clouds spewed into the sky, bringing about an end we could never have predicted. While the one percent lined their pockets and pretended ignorance, the rest of us bent our backs. We drilled the seabed and found black gold. We bored beneath our homes and tore up forests to fuel the greed of the rich, all the while blind to our fate. As we burned this world, so the sun burned us, melting the poles, raising the oceans, bringing smog and filth to the air for our children to inherit. In the ash, dust and fog, we didn’t see them before it was too late. They came from the sea …

There is much to say about this paragraph, but for now I will simply note that: (1) "Soviets versus Senators" is one of the oddest parallels I've seen and (2) "we took out [sic] spades and picks to the ground and dug out the heart blood of the land" taking place after the Cold War reveals a certain confusion about the historical sequence of things and also about how oil is actually extracted (AFAIK, at no time in human history was oil extracted using spade and picks, but maybe in this alternate reality cars run on liquified coal). I guess polemics gonna polemicize. I do think it's epic and fantastic that this game is written by the same guy who wrote The Sea Will Claim Everything. He saw it coming, at least!

 

[Destroid]

Cracking coal to liquid oil has been used at least since WW2.

 

[Mozg]

What is the instinct to turn X-Com into a "humans are shit" cynical story (as in TftD, Apocalypse) when the original game is about a pitifully optimistic entire-human-race-including-Zimbabwe international government institution that defeats interstellar magic-using aliens?

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

What is the instinct to turn X-Com into a "humans are shit" cynical story (as in TftD, Apocalypse) when the original game is about a pitifully optimistic entire-human-race-including-Zimbabwe international government institution that defeats interstellar magic-using aliens?

Its mostly due to the Cthulhuian vibe they're trying to go for.

 

[Mozg]

Cthulu doesn't give a shit about whether you eat sustainable quinoa. It's not a punishment for sin; it's about futility and insignificance.

 

[Destroid]

I hope this guy makes it into the game:

 

[MRY]

Just realized this is the plot to The Inhumanoids.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Its mostly due to the Cthulhuian vibe they're trying to go for.

That description has nothing to do with cthulhu tho, not even the enemy art has the slightest vibe.

Cthulhu is about old gods sleeping in the dark places of the earth, their human and inhuman minions plotting their return, old long dead civilizations rediscovered and the madness that destroyed them, it's about the inevitable end of all things... It's not about the environment or minigun lobster captain planet wannabes.

Im excited for the game, but that story blurb is utter shit.

 

[Jimmious]

Its mostly due to the Cthulhuian vibe they're trying to go for.

That description has nothing to do with cthulhu tho, not even the enemy art has the slightest vibe.

Cthulhu is about old gods sleeping in the dark places of the earth, their human and inhuman minions plotting their return, old long dead civilizations rediscovered and the madness that destroyed them, it's about the inevitable end of all things... It's not about the environment or minigun lobster captain planet wannabes.

Im excited for the game, but that story blurb is utter shit.

What if they did wake up an ancient evil lurking in the sea due to digging deep without knowledge?

 

[MRY]

Its mostly due to the Cthulhuian vibe they're trying to go for.

That description has nothing to do with cthulhu tho, not even the enemy art has the slightest vibe.

Cthulhu is about old gods sleeping in the dark places of the earth, their human and inhuman minions plotting their return, old long dead civilizations rediscovered and the madness that destroyed them, it's about the inevitable end of all things... It's not about the environment or minigun lobster captain planet wannabes.

Im excited for the game, but that story blurb is utter shit.

What if they did wake up an ancient evil lurking in the sea due to digging deep without knowledge?

It should turn out that fossil fuels are actually a sentient race trying to stop the genocidal one-percenters from wiping them out!

[EDIT: In slightly more seriousness, one thing I don't really understand is how they're handling the connection (or lack thereof) between the ecological harm of fossil fuels and the undersea threat. The consequence of global warming is that it became too dusty to see the lobstermen coming?! The reason I find it so odd is that there are straightforward 1-2-3s here. For example:

(1) Global warming melts Antarctic ice.
(2) This releases Shoggoths from frozen captivity.
(3) They travel by sea.

Or

(1) RussianCapitalist oil companies drill Lake Vostok.
(2) Releasing Shoggoths from frozen captivity.
(3) They travel by sea.

Or

(1) Global warming warms the oceans.
(2) Wakening Deep Ones from their chilly hibernation.
(3) They invade cities flooded by rising sea level.

I mean, these would play off a mix of mythos, science, conspiracy theory, etc. rather than just being sort of eco-sadness combined with seamonsters.]

 

[sser]

Heh, well fuck. I wrote a pretty bad novel in which aliens of sorts come out of the ocean. They were mad scroungers/nomads who picked the sea floor clean and over time accumulated a vast array of weaponry from all the garbage that fell down there. They released a toxin into the air that killed most everyone/forced humanity to quickly depart the planet. Their initial weaponry were things powered by hydraulics, coils, etc. Like harpoon guns on land. Then over time they picked up human weapons. They weren't interested in extermination, only in collecting more shit. Gangster hoarders through and through.

The monsters seen thus far seem to utilize rapid evolution and adaptation, if the dude wielding a gun for an arm is anything to go by.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Heh, well fuck. I wrote a pretty bad novel in which aliens of sorts come out of the ocean. They were mad scroungers/nomads who picked the sea floor clean and over time accumulated a vast array of weaponry from all the garbage that fell down there. They released a toxin into the air that killed most everyone/forced humanity to quickly depart the planet. Their initial weaponry were things powered by hydraulics, coils, etc. Like harpoon guns on land. Then over time they picked up human weapons. They weren't interested in extermination, only in collecting more shit. Gangster hoarders through and through.

The monsters seen thus far seem to utilize rapid evolution and adaptation, if the dude wielding a gun for an arm is anything to go by.

Is this published somewhere?

 

[sser]

Heh, well fuck. I wrote a pretty bad novel in which aliens of sorts come out of the ocean. They were mad scroungers/nomads who picked the sea floor clean and over time accumulated a vast array of weaponry from all the garbage that fell down there. They released a toxin into the air that killed most everyone/forced humanity to quickly depart the planet. Their initial weaponry were things powered by hydraulics, coils, etc. Like harpoon guns on land. Then over time they picked up human weapons. They weren't interested in extermination, only in collecting more shit. Gangster hoarders through and through.

The monsters seen thus far seem to utilize rapid evolution and adaptation, if the dude wielding a gun for an arm is anything to go by.

Is this published somewhere?

Fuh-huck no. Maybe some day, but for now it is shelved.

 

[Lucky]

The Fat One

A hideous beast, pregnant with a swarm of alien minions within its belly.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

All these large creatures, i'm wondering how they'll be dealt with mechanics wise.

 

[Alienman]

All these large creatures, i'm wondering how they'll be dealt with mechanics wise.

 

[Jimmious]

They could make it so that you have to hit specific parts of their bodies and utilize a bunch of soldiers to take down a huge beast like that....That would be sweet

 

[Ironmonk]

These designs reminds me a lot about One Punch Man. If this game gets mod support, I already can see people doing a mod about it.

 

[LESS T_T]

hi-rez

 

[Luka-boy]

I'm still hoping the guns the invaders wield are a placeholder. There might still be a lore reason for them to be like that, but it seems like a waste to have such bizarre-looking enemies wield such normal-looking firearms.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/phoenix-point-new-game-from-creator-original-x-com-julian-gollop

Phoenix Point - The New Game From the Creator of the Original X-COM

Phoenix Point is the new project from my studio, Snapshot Games. Last year we launched our first game, Chaos Reborn, to critical acclaim achieving an 85% Metacritic rating. Now I am going back to my sci-fi roots with an XCOM style game that incorporates the modern presentation and slick game play of the Firaxis reboot with the more strategic, open-world approach of the very first X-COM game from 1994.

We are in the process of raising finance for funding the project and I am interested in talking to:

• Investors - who can enjoy a share of the revenue
• Publishers - who can support the game's release
• Games Journalists - who want to know more about the game

Please get in touch. Both myself and the president of Snapshot Games, David Kaye (founder of Gaming Insiders) will be at E3 in June - so let's hook up!

 

[Mustawd]

I'm so hyped for this I just punched my dog in the face. And I don't even own a dog.

 

[Athelas]

Last year we launched our first game, Chaos Reborn, to critical acclaim achieving an 85% Metacritic rating.

You're not in the 90's anymore, Julian. An 85% Metacritic score nowadays means your game is just a little above average.

modern presentation and slick game play of the Firaxis reboot

 

[Mazisky]

Bad choice.
Instead of doing Sci-fi stuff he could just go on on fantasy settings, considering that THERE IS NOT an Xcom like game in fantasy universe, while there are lot of mercenaries\soldiers\scifi stuff.

A fantasy Xcom like would be fresh.

Also, when the game will be released, Xcom 2 will be full of mods, Dlcs and expansions and maybe Xcom 3 announced, not the best spot for releasing a similar game

Again, bad choice going on Scifi