XCOM PROTOTYPE
Developer Firaxis Games
Sid and the company, they gave me and another programmer six months. I wasn’t even really a designer at this point, I just really wanted to make XCOM and we had the licence to it. When I got the opportunity I still had this arrogance that it was gonna be great.
I was using old Unreal Engine assets and so unqualified. Instead of focusing on the really hard stuff, like how to make it fun, I focused on an inventory system. By the end of the six months, you could walk these guys around, they had time units, they could shoot. There was a fully fleshed-out inventory system, for fuck knows what reason. It was absolutely terrible. It was just a classic case of overengineering. It looked cool, for what it was, but it was no fun at all.
We showed it to the company and everybody was very nice about it. But I was relieved. I was like, “Obviously I’ve done a terrible job. I’m no good at this”. And so I joined Sid on Civilization Revolution. But what had happened was that, [by getting] my shot at making that XCOM prototype so early, I did get the bug for design.
“THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. YOU’VE GOTTA EAT YOUR OWN COOKING”