XCOM: Chimera squad it changes a lot with the old XCOM, but the biggest move is the layout itself. The decision to merge matters was controversial, and at the beginning many members of the development team got into the act. No one holds more weight than Sid Meier, founder of the Civilization Franchise and director of graphic development at Firaxis Games. Industrial legend has been a major component of change, and even built its own model.
Changes to the XCOM formula in Chimera squad it's called Interleaved Turns. Instead of moving all your units and waiting for the computer to move all its units, the allied troops and enemy units are grouped together as a sort of boarding order. It looks a bit subtle, but as I mentioned in my review, it completely alters the pace of the game and helps to stand out from the other titles that have shocked you. Simply put, Interleaved Turn allows Chimera squad doing things that no other XCOM game has ever been able to do before.
But even Jake Solomon, the creative director at the Firaxis Games and the lead designer of the entire XCOM franchise, was initially opposed.
"When (they) told me they were taking the initiative to care for others and encouraging them with their actions," Solomon said to Touch, "I said & # 39; Ooooo, I don't know when I would do that … & # 39; And they did that and it was great and obviously a good decision."
“They” called Mark Nauta, a graphic designer Chimera squad and successful XCOM 2: Battle of the Chosen the increase that came before it. In an interview with Polygon, Nauta explained that his team stayed on Interleaved Turns early. But the decision was controversial.
"Sid was actually a big part of that," said Nauta. “You have added a modified XCOM version for me. It was very clean. (…) I don't want to get into details, but Sid has this kind of engine that he always does things with. ”
As revealed in the year 2016, Meier prototyping software has been in use for decades. Speaking to PCGamesN, executive producer Dennis Shirk said it was one of his secret weapons.
"Usually you sort of do it," said Shirk in an interview with E3, "nobody knows it's coming. # 39; We'll just start playing something, and it's really fun because he has his own custom engine that he's been working on, which has been steadily building up over the last 20 or so years, and then it's finally translated into something more modern. ”
No one else in Firaxis has as much knowledge of Meier's engine, but Nauta says he set aside time to throw his great expertise into the problem of Interleaved Turns. That helped prove to Nauta and his team that it would work, and enabled them to come up with some novel solutions along the way.
"As well as talking to Jake (Solomon) and myself, we were a great source of feedback, as we were just beginning to build what your other team would be. At first we were doing things we wanted to do and we definitely wanted to put together a list of things.
Once the team settled on Interleaved Turns, lead producer Andrew Frederiksen said most of the entire game started to catch the gel. It was the backbone where the attachment to all the other things was different. That includes soldiers of aliens and aliens, a criminal mechanic who is introduced to begin each combat encounter, and a real-life strategy background
"It was really nice to see him live," Frederiksen told Polygon in an interview. “Good communication was not the first thing there was. We were talking, & # 39; Well, let's do this one thing first, let's try this. & # 39; And they were right. & # 39; OK, we need to move forward. Let's try it (Converted turn). & # 39; And we tried it, and we were like, & # 39; Yes, that's a thing. & # 39; ”
It turns out that the father of Civilization, almost 40 years of technology making video games, still has many tricks on his sleeve.
