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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

The New Xcom


jpb

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I got this idea for a while and now i decide to share it with everyone who likes XCOM/UFO

This forum was created with the purpose of present and develop ideias for the creation

of a quality game in the line of the UFO/XCOM saga. There are no lucrative objectives,

only the intention to create a game in the line of its predecessors and thus to provide countless

hours of pure fun. Being important to remember that the small details,

ideias and small innovations can make the great difference. The game can be developed by

anyone who can program in the base of the open source or with the contribution

of some interested company that wants "to catch" this ideia.

 

 

THE MAIN TOPICS:

 

GAME CONCEPT

GRAPHIC DETAIL

HISTORICAL SCENARIO

THE GAME MAPS

THE MISSIONS

THE BASES

THE SOLDIERS

WEAPONS AND TECHNOLOGY

THE ALIENS

 

 

- GAME CONCEPT

 

Being this a subject that certainly pleases the great majority of video game fans,

there is a lot of possibilities wich deserve to be explored. The action itself should be

in the classic turn based style, in addition with the usual strategical presentation of the earth

globe. The game would have to possess some degree of complexity compared to his predecessors

because of the interesting innovations and details that would be part of this game.

It would have to include an editor or any other form to extend the possibilities for choices

of the player, for example to let the player decide the maximum or minimal number of soldiers that

start in the first stage of the game therefore preventing limitations that can compromise the quality

and the interest of the game.

An important innovation could be the chance to choose to play as the ALIENS and not just the

Human side, howhever this can only be possible after completing the game or after reach an advanced

stage, this is because when the player choose to play with aliens without try the humans first

it would compromise the interest of the whole game since for example the fun of conducting an alien

autopsy or reserch an alien technology wouldn't be the same if you already know the result.

It would be better to chose a simple, easy an pratical interface in the same style of the two

first XCOM's. Another important point in the concept of this game would be its playability, having for

example the chance while in the action to be possible to use veihcles (armed jeeps, stactic gun

turrets, etc) and on the other hand the player can be forced to abandon the veihcles if by some reason

they are incapacitated and turn into an easy target.

In terms of the graphical presentation of the characters it could be like the "Cartoon" type,

like in the first two XCOMs) or something more realistic (like in UFO Aftermath or UFO Extraterrestrials)

I personally find the first option to be more atractive.

 

 

- GRAPHICAL DETAIL

 

Like it seems to be already prooved that it isn't just only the graphical quality that determines

the quality of the game, specially for this type of game where great graphic demands don't

seem to be necessary and at the same time taking some example of other games that do not

possess great graphical engines.

 

 

- HISTORICAL SCENARIOS

 

The story could take place in a close future, a post-apocalyptic scenario or something more or less

close to our era, instead of a very futuristic scenario that does not seem to favor

the quality of the game as already seen on some poor examples.

 

 

- THE GAME MAPS

 

The usual forests, deserts, country fields, snow deserts are nice scenarios for an UFO salvaging mission

(I posted some Blitzkrieg maps exactly to show the graphical level that suits, while demonstrating

that he is not necessary to use the latest graphical technology to make a great game), some other maps

can be Military Bases, Factorys, harbours, streets with subway stations, Oil tankers, bases, and others.

 

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/8686/snow2qh7.jpg

 

A nice scenario for a UFO salvaging mission.

 

 

 

- THE MISSIONS

 

The missions tend to be something of great importance since is where the action takes place

and therefore the diversity must be well planed, under the risk of not falling into the

monotony and consequent disinterest, to prevent this factor some new aspects can be included

such as the possibility in case of the mission occur in the proximity of a military base to get

an advantage of being able to request air support from attack choppers for recognition and ground

attack, or in the inverse case if the mission is near to an alien base the result would be a

major disadvantage. The interaction with the environment would be also something to explore,

for example in a cenario with an oil transport truck that causes a spectacular explosion if hited

by some shot. The mission types should vary between Rescue, base defense, UFO salvaging, sabotage,

alien incursions as well as special missions while reaching certain stages of the game.

 

 

- THE BASES

 

There could be two types of bases: underground and submarine simultaneously. The number

of initial bases could be of three (and this is just an idea), one somewhere in Central

America, one between Europe and Africa, an other between Asia and Australia with the

possibility to choose or not the bases location. The base facilities would be similar

to the previous games, howhever with a difference that the bases would possess two

underground levels the first for the underground hangars and landing/take off pads ,

and the second sublevel for facilities such as living quarters, laboratories, Radars,

defense systems, training fields etc.

In addition to the regular bases it would be interesting the introduction of "detection

outposts" that don't possess the same type of installations of the conventional bases

but only a detection system, a small store for weapons and ammo, living quarters

and veihcles to support those bases like armed buggys (like in Battlefield 2, i just

love those buggys) and AT-ST's (Yeah, those walking turrets from Star Wars !!)

and by this way creating additional and rich scenarios wich give pleasure just

to look at, contributing for the missions variety.

 

 

- THE SOLDIERS

 

How about a number of 60 soldiers per base (2 Platoons),one general for the entire

organization, each base with one Colonel, one Major, 2 Captains, 2 Lieutenants, 4

Sergeants, 4 Corporals and the remaining compposed by soldiers (of course that those

numbers don't need to be strict) there should also be possible to choose the soldiers

for those ranks or leave this selection to be automatic. The initial number of soldiers

maybe sound high while comparing to the other XCOM games and this is because it sounds

much logical that an alien invasion should be faced by an army of special forces rather

than by a team of just ten soldiers. The human forces could be composed by a mix of navy

(like TFTD) and army forces (like XCOM 1) depending the situation.

It would be also interesting to check the information about each soldier apart from combat

and physical capabilities as well as the role he performs best (sniper, medical, etc) the

number of missions he participated, the number of casualities he caused, etc. The manner

in wich this information can presented could be something similar to what it is TFTD, or

slightly improved. Another innovation could consist of a system of awards like medals for

certain achievements like the period of time in service, rescue of civilians or other

soldiers, number of missions, etc.

 

 

- WEAPONS AND TECHNOLOGY

 

In the begining the tecnological level should be limited to what is at our disposal in the

present era or something not much advanced with the possibility to develop and research

technologies like laser or gauss or even inspired in the alien technology but without the

chance of exceed or even match the alien technology, and instead relaing mostly in the

development capacity of your scientist team. Some existing technology could be inspired for

example in combat droids (like ED 209, wouldn't this be great? imagine that, an ED 209

fighting aliens and giving them heck !!), the already mentioned AT-ST's of the Star Wars,

armed jeeps, etc.

 

- VEHICLES (HUMAN AND ALIEN)

 

The vehicles should be divided into two categories: Combat and Transport. Some transport

vehicles can be based on the Triton, or the Leviathan and could be launched from underground

bases or a special hibrid (submarine\ship) wich is exactly used for naval operations as well

as gives UFO detection support. The attack vehicles should be used to intercept UFOs or in the

case of helicopters for air support and ground attack.

 

 

- THE ALIENS

 

The most alien types are already created as the Sectoids, Bio-drones (that I consider a "must"),

Gillmans, Mutons, some alien based in the creature of the "Predator" with great capacity of

camouflage and resistence thus constituting an extreme opposition to your soldiers. Obviously

each type of alien would possess its own specific carachteristics, some more common, some more

rare, some more stronger some weaker.

Edited by jpb
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Guest Azrael

Not to be a party-pooper, but are you a programmer or intend on program this yourself? Because there are plenty of projects aiming at recreating X-Com, and very few live longer than a few months, and the ones that survive seldom get anywhere too, and I can assure you that no project is going to get anywhere unless you get something more tangible than just a few guidelines on how you'd like your game to be, you need something else, otherwise you're never going to get programmers, if you ever do.

 

Good luck.

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Well...

I must totally agree with you, i must begin with making a project, start the work myself and then

show the progress to the others.

I can't fully say that i'm a game programmer yet, i had to learn C++ for several reasons and this was one more, howhever even if i was a senior programmer i do realize that this envolves a huge work to be

done all by myself and i really need some help with it.

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