X-COM creator hopes his kinder, gentler strategy game will woo new players

Julian Gollop designed X-COM, a difficult strategy game to dive into.

Perhaps as a bit of atonement, he’s now working on the hybrid strategy-RPG Chaos Reborn, which re-creates his original fantasy strategy game Chaos — and makes his whole approach to the genre quite a bit more friendly.

Chaos Reborn is a turn-based strategy (think hexes) fantasy multiplayer game with a serious solo or duo RPG side: exploration levels with quests and missions and followers and upgradable items.

After you level up your character and its gear, you battle others in a turn-based arena, throwing minions, spells, and melee attacks their way. You can even bluff opponents by summoning minions that don’t actually exist, that do full damage until they are “disbelieved.”

The original Chaos hit in 1985 as the video game version of a fantasy board game Gollop had designed. In many ways, it resembled the limited Early Access version of Chaos Reborn that you can play now. You’re randomly assigned a wizard, a staff, and cards with spells or abilities on them at the start of the match, playing one to three other live or computer-controlled opponents.

Playing the master and getting the details

I interviewed Gollop from his home in Bulgaria and played a couple of quick matches of Chaos Reborn. It’s due out later this year for $20 on PC, Mac, and Linux. Steam Early Access versions with some extras are available now starting at $20.

In one match after I’d had a few hours to practice, Gollop unsurprisingly annihilated me. But I stole the second match … with some truly amazing randomness, too much trust from my opponent, and a strong hint from him on my end game. (He usually doesn’t lose; check out the Gollop Wallop beta tournament records for a chuckle.)

Consider that proof of this game’s friendliness.

The questing/RPG aspect of the game comes later this spring, giving players the chance to find and upgrade staves and other character items and abilities by exploring player- or randomly generated maps, running missions, learning spells, and working cooperatively with a friend.

GamesBeat: Did you start off by designing Chaos Reborn as a strategy game like the original and then add the other elements in? How did the concept of CR come together?

Julian Gollop: I think the original idea was to take the original Chaos game as a starting point and add a bigger RPG aspect to it. Basically, I started from the beginning with the ending combination in mind.

The very first idea I had was that the game must feel very similar to the original Chaos in the way it works, with quick-playing tactical combat. It must [also] have an interesting, involving RPG aspect with good single-player exploration gameplay in it.

GamesBeat: Your original X-COM is infamous for being brutal in the early stages, especially at higher difficulty levels. This feels much more forgiving.

Gollop: It’s definitely more forgiving. I don’t want it to be very difficult.

If you want a bigger challenge you can enter a higher-level [questing] realm, and if you want an easier challenge you can go to a low-level realm, but you need to make that choice as to what kind of level of challenge you want.

Similarly, our multiplayer matching system will try to match players of comparable ability. But I think for new players it will be a lot easier to get into than X-COM, for sure.

GamesBeat: Was that a deliberate choice?

Gollop: Yeah, I think so.

GamesBeat: Are you mellowing, or is it just a different approach?

Gollop: I guess—what I’ve always wanted to do is make turn-based strategy games more accessible to more players, to remove some of the intimidation that was usually associated with such games. In fact, even with RPGs, they can be quite intimidating in terms of difficulty as well. And to make it more accessible for players who might not be used to playing this style of game.

GamesBeat: What do you think will cause RPG players to enjoy the strategy, and strategy players to enjoy the RPG?

Gollop: If you’re more of a traditional RPG player, which is about building your character and your equipment, then you need to invest in the strategy and preparing for battle. That’s still a fundamental part of RPG games.

I think all RPG games have an element of strategy to them. They give you choice in what you can do. That’s what strategy games are all about. There’s no one single way to victory. There’s no single way to prepare your spell deck and your weapons. There may be different ways to tackle different types of enemies.

For strategy players to enjoy the RPG, well, if they go through the RPG system, it gives them greater choice, more strategic options to experiment and play with.

GamesBeat: Do you think they’re likely to see that as enjoyable gameplay in its own right or more as a stepping stone to the part they really enjoy?

Gollop: It’s difficult to say. You could, for example, play the game completely focused on multiplayer and ignore the realm exploration. You’d still be able to level up your character. You’d still be able to acquire equipment. But it would be less focused on the exploration side.

And then maybe other players who are much more into the RPG side, who enjoy exploring the realms and the little stories that you get there, finding interesting things, maybe even just collecting rare items that other people don’t have — there’s scope for different styles of play there.

But because they’re all interlinked, you can’t completely exclude one or the other. You can’t completely ignore the strategy or the RPG.

GamesBeat: And you’re always a wizard?

Gollop: Yeah, you’re always a wizard. There are three basic types of body gear. That determines your style of play. There’s the heroic type. Heroic just means that you’re probably going to be a bit more involved in combat as a wizard, with swords and bows and riding mounts and stuff.

Then you have the vigilant type. Vigilant is a more cautious and defensive wizard, more well defended but not so agile. Finally you have the arcane type, which is relatively weak in close combat and defense, but has more magic power. It’s more focused on the magic attack types of spells.

GamesBeat: Can you describe the additional elements you plan to add to the game?

Gollop: As you know, [right now] you have a wizard with a staff, and some randomly allocated pieces of equipment. You have completely randomly allocated spells.

The next major step is quite a comprehensive equipment system. Your wizard will be able to choose body gear and choose a staff and be able to acquire this body gear and staffs by exploring in realms and fighting in battles. You’ll then be able to equip these staffs with talismans, which are special magical artifacts that give you special powers.

You can find a piece of equipment which is very low level and you can level it up. It builds its powers and unlocks talisman slots and you can put more talismans in it.

You might be able to find higher-level equipment.

You can combine equipment to build more rare types of equipment. If you have three of the same type you can combine them and use them to forge another piece of equipment, for example.