X-COM: Genesis
Encyclopedia
X-COM: Genesis was a computer game in development in the X-COM
series. It was being produced by original MicroProse
employees, then working for Hasbro Interactive
who bought out the game developer
. Production took place in the original MicroProse offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
. X-COM: Genesis was never completed due to Hasbro
's shutdown of Hasbro Interactive late in 1999.
game development studio in Salt Lake City, Utah
.
The Chapel Hill development team, just after finishing X-COM: Interceptor
, had completed converting the original X-COM games from DOS
to Windows
(using DirectX
). Wanting to return to gameplay of the original games, the team began developing a storyline that was conducive to squad-based missions, the highlight of the original games. The creepy atmosphere, frighteningly powerful aliens, base building and research were all allotted for in the new version.
Two innovations are notable, however: the game would be in 3D
and would be real-time strategy
instead of turn-based (as in the original versions). The last feature was tentative—if using it didn't convey the same atmosphere and feel as the original, it would be replaced with a turn-based implementation. As a precaution, the game designer, Dave Ellis
, had provided for a feature where players could easily stop the action and issue commands to their units.
In mid-1999 the team started developing a 3D engine from scratch. The engine used Direct3D
to take advantage of hardware acceleration, but also had a software 3D engine for those computers without 3D cards.
The team developed a "Geoscape", a view of Earth
from orbit, that far surpassed the implementation in previous versions. The original game had a flat-shaded, rather blocky representation of the Earth. XCG had a smooth globe on a background of stars. With the mouse, the user could turn the Earth and when doing so, could see the Sun
and Moon
pass by in the background. A translucent covering of clouds swirled above the tranquil blue, green and brown planet surface below.
The team built a level editor
to allow the artists
to build levels for the "Battlescape"—the areas where battles against the alien invaders would take place. The artists created an urban environment with a filling station, warehouse, an apartment building, attached parking garage, a park, a burning trashbin and streetlights that cast pools of light. Floating above it all was a blimp
with floodlights streaming earthward. Standing in formation outside their aircraft were the X-COM soldiers, shifting on their feet, looking left to right. Zooming in closely, one could even see their chests huff as they breathed. By simply pointing and clicking, the soldiers could be commanded to move from place to place. All action was in real-time.
Once at this point, the programmers busied themselves adding more features to the engine, refining current features and implementing AI
. Meanwhile, Dave Ellis was busy developing the game design
and the artists were producing concept art. In the studio's main conference room, one entire wall was covered with concept art—original sketches and color treatments of illustrations. The facing wall was covered in colored Post-it notes depicting the player's possible paths through the game. Technology trees, base discoveries and pivotal events were all represented.
's Combat!
were also being worked on by others at the studio). The employees were informed they'd have a month to find new jobs. Immediately after the announcement, a job hunting specialist started a lecture, but employees waved him off, trying to recover from the blow. The Chapel Hill Hasbro Interactive studio shut its doors forever on January 7, 2000.
Shortly thereafter, the remaining Hasbro Interactive studios were shut down, one by one. Hasbro finally sold all of Hasbro Interactive's assets to Infogrames
(now Atari). In 2005, Take-Two Interactive
acquired the rights to the X-COM series from Atari.
Several previous employees of the studio quickly banded together and formed a new studio. Calling it Vicious Cycle Software
, they immediately set to work developing a new 3D engine—a technology demo—showcasing their prowess. Dave Ellis, leveraging contacts at Mattel
, arranged for a demonstration of the demo to Mattel's management. They were impressed with the program and contracted Vicious Cycle to make a Robotech
game for the then new video game console
s, the PlayStation 2
and Xbox
.
Many employees left game development altogether, some left North Carolina
(since Hasbro had just relocated several people to work at the studio and had kept them employed for under a month, they agreed to re-relocate them to a destination of their choice). Some former employees who weren't initially included in Vicious Cycle would go on to join them later, and some original employees would leave.
X-COM
X-COM is a series of strategy games created by Julian Gollop. In 2010 2K Marin announced the official reboot of the series, entitled simply XCOM. The original game has a cult following.- Original series :...
series. It was being produced by original MicroProse
MicroProse
MicroProse was a video game publisher and developer, founded by Wild Bill Stealey and Sid Meier in 1982 as Microprose Software. In 1993, the company became a subsidiary of Spectrum HoloByte and has remained a subsidiary or brand name under several other corporations since...
employees, then working for Hasbro Interactive
Hasbro Interactive
Hasbro Interactive was an American video game production and publishing subsidiary of Hasbro, the large game and toy company.Hasbro Interactive was formed late in 1995 in order to compete in the computer and video game arena. Several Hasbro properties, such as Monopoly and Scrabble, had already...
who bought out the game developer
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
. Production took place in the original MicroProse offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
. X-COM: Genesis was never completed due to Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
's shutdown of Hasbro Interactive late in 1999.
Development
The development team consisted of MicroProse veterans and new hires to help with the workload. Some of the new hires were game industry veterans, but some were new to game development. A substantial number of the new hires came from the freshly shutdown EAIEngineering Animation, Inc.
Engineering Animation, Inc. was a services and software company based in Ames, Iowa , United States. It remained headquartered there from its incorporation in 1990 until it was acquired by Unigraphics Solutions, Inc. in 1999...
game development studio in Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
.
The Chapel Hill development team, just after finishing X-COM: Interceptor
X-COM: Interceptor
-External links:*: An extensive wiki containing information, analysis, strategy, and other resources for the X-COM series...
, had completed converting the original X-COM games from DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
to Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
(using DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
). Wanting to return to gameplay of the original games, the team began developing a storyline that was conducive to squad-based missions, the highlight of the original games. The creepy atmosphere, frighteningly powerful aliens, base building and research were all allotted for in the new version.
Two innovations are notable, however: the game would be in 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
and would be real-time strategy
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
instead of turn-based (as in the original versions). The last feature was tentative—if using it didn't convey the same atmosphere and feel as the original, it would be replaced with a turn-based implementation. As a precaution, the game designer, Dave Ellis
Dave Ellis (game designer)
Dave Ellis is an author and video game designer. He is also an avid classic arcade game collector and a columnist for GameRoom Magazine.-Career:...
, had provided for a feature where players could easily stop the action and issue commands to their units.
In mid-1999 the team started developing a 3D engine from scratch. The engine used Direct3D
Direct3D
Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface . Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems , and for other platforms through the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems...
to take advantage of hardware acceleration, but also had a software 3D engine for those computers without 3D cards.
The team developed a "Geoscape", a view of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
from orbit, that far surpassed the implementation in previous versions. The original game had a flat-shaded, rather blocky representation of the Earth. XCG had a smooth globe on a background of stars. With the mouse, the user could turn the Earth and when doing so, could see the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
and Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
pass by in the background. A translucent covering of clouds swirled above the tranquil blue, green and brown planet surface below.
The team built a level editor
Level editor
A level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
to allow the artists
Game artist
A game artist is an artist who creates art for one or more types of games. Game artists are responsible for all of the aspects of game development that call for visual art...
to build levels for the "Battlescape"—the areas where battles against the alien invaders would take place. The artists created an urban environment with a filling station, warehouse, an apartment building, attached parking garage, a park, a burning trashbin and streetlights that cast pools of light. Floating above it all was a blimp
Blimp
A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is a floating airship without an internal supporting framework or keel. A non-rigid airship differs from a semi-rigid airship and a rigid airship in that it does not have any rigid structure, neither a complete framework nor a partial keel, to help the airbag...
with floodlights streaming earthward. Standing in formation outside their aircraft were the X-COM soldiers, shifting on their feet, looking left to right. Zooming in closely, one could even see their chests huff as they breathed. By simply pointing and clicking, the soldiers could be commanded to move from place to place. All action was in real-time.
Once at this point, the programmers busied themselves adding more features to the engine, refining current features and implementing AI
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
. Meanwhile, Dave Ellis was busy developing the game design
Game design
Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...
and the artists were producing concept art. In the studio's main conference room, one entire wall was covered with concept art—original sketches and color treatments of illustrations. The facing wall was covered in colored Post-it notes depicting the player's possible paths through the game. Technology trees, base discoveries and pivotal events were all represented.
Cancellation
On December 7, 1999, the entire studio was called into the conference room adorned with X-COM miscellany. Hasbro Interactive management, flanked by security guards, told the employees that they were shutting down the studio and cancelling development on all titles (prototypes for other games and an updated version of AtariAtari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
's Combat!
Combat (video game)
Combat is an early video game by Atari for the Atari 2600. It was released as one of the nine launch titles for the system in October 1977, and was included in the box with the system from its introduction until 1982...
were also being worked on by others at the studio). The employees were informed they'd have a month to find new jobs. Immediately after the announcement, a job hunting specialist started a lecture, but employees waved him off, trying to recover from the blow. The Chapel Hill Hasbro Interactive studio shut its doors forever on January 7, 2000.
Shortly thereafter, the remaining Hasbro Interactive studios were shut down, one by one. Hasbro finally sold all of Hasbro Interactive's assets to Infogrames
Infogrames
Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...
(now Atari). In 2005, Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a major American publisher, developer, and distributor of video games and video game peripherals. Take-Two wholly owns 2K Games and Rockstar Games. The company's headquarters are in New York City, with international headquarters in Windsor, United Kingdom...
acquired the rights to the X-COM series from Atari.
Several previous employees of the studio quickly banded together and formed a new studio. Calling it Vicious Cycle Software
Vicious Cycle Software
Vicious Cycle Software is a video game development company based in Morrisville, North Carolina, United States.-History:Vicious Cycle was founded in 2000 by Eric Peterson, Dave Ellis, Marc Racine and Wayne Harvey after layoffs at the local MicroProse development studio forced several game...
, they immediately set to work developing a new 3D engine—a technology demo—showcasing their prowess. Dave Ellis, leveraging contacts at Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
, arranged for a demonstration of the demo to Mattel's management. They were impressed with the program and contracted Vicious Cycle to make a Robotech
Robotech
Robotech is an 85-episode science fiction anime adaptation produced by Harmony Gold USA in association with Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd. and first released in the United States in 1985...
game for the then new video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
s, the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
and Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
.
Many employees left game development altogether, some left North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
(since Hasbro had just relocated several people to work at the studio and had kept them employed for under a month, they agreed to re-relocate them to a destination of their choice). Some former employees who weren't initially included in Vicious Cycle would go on to join them later, and some original employees would leave.
External links
- Dave Ellis Interview: A three-part interview with Dave Ellis, the game designer of X-COM: Interceptor and X-COM: Genesis
- Page dedicated to the X-COM: Genesis development team