Why a remake rather than a sequel?
I've been considering ideas for sequels to Xenonauts for a while. Sadly the tech level of the humans at the end of Xenonauts is so powerful that narratively I don't think there's anywhere we can go that would not take the series into completely different territory (e.g. dealing with a societal collapse caused indirectly by alien technology, fighting aliens across different dimensions, fighting a Skynet-style entity etc).
If we're going in a different direction, we may as well start with an entirely blank slate rather than tenuously tying the game to the events of Xenonauts. We'd get much more freedom that way, so in my mind there's no sense in making a Xenonauts 2 that covers different events.
A sequel is a bad idea, for the reasons you stated. Part of the fun in this type of game is starting with conventional, relatively weak/weaker weapons and then improving over time until your force is full of badassedness (a new word!).
I would like to see some innovation in a remake though - possibly exploring different avenues for the aliens or location of the game. Living ships like Moia from Farscape or the Wraith Hive ships from Stargate. Although in saying this I liked how the aliens were similar in some ways to the original X-Com but there were enough differences to feel unique and not copied.
I'm rambling on now but mentioning Stargate... some kind of Xcom/Stargate mash up would be awesome I think.
But what about your other games?
This is just something I'm thinking about - remember we've not made any final decisions yet, and I'm just gathering ideas to see how tempting I can make Xenonauts 2 look as a proposition. It has to be different enough from Xenonauts 1 to work as a standalone game (albeit we may give a discount to people who already bought the original).
Still, it's no secret that we've been working on other game design concepts recently. All of these have been squad-based combat games with split tactical and strategy layers. We've been working on tools and code that will support us making any game of that type - the difference between each design is just the story / setting, the design of the strategy layer, and a handful of specific tactical combat mechanics.
Therefore moving to a new design wouldn't cost us too much in terms of development time (this is why I've been bouncing ideas around so much). Moving to Xenonauts 2 would actually be far easier than developing a new game because we know the first game inside out ... although because we could pretty much develop it on autopilot, we'd probably develop it alongside another squad-based tactics game that would be rather more innovative.
Again, as I mentioned above, I would prefer some innovation than just a pure remake of Xenonaughts 2.
Intended Improvements:
These are the improvements to Xenonauts that I'd like to make in a sequel:
Full 3D - We'd make the game in full 3D with a (90-degree) rotatable camera. I'd also want to replace soldier paperdolls and painted screen backgrounds etc on the strategy layer with 3D models. Like several over posters have said - many games that weren't originally 3D but had sequels in 3D lost some of their charm. I don't think it's just nostalgia talking either. I know some people would like a rotatable map - maybe that's a good middle ground?
Aliens - I'd like to add some more aliens, rework some of the existing ones mechanically to be more interesting and also redesign them so they look more striking and "alien" in the ground combat. More striking/alien is good. I'm a little worried that it won't feel like XCom (if the aliens are too different) but you guys seem to have a good grasp on what makes an xcom game so I'd like to see some unique stuff if you can pull it off.
Research / Development - I want to add the concept of 'development' to the research tree, allowing you to continue researching "hub" technologies (like laser weapons etc) to increase their effectiveness if you choose. Choosing whether to improve existing tech or research new stuff should add more choice to the research tree. More options = more ways to play + replayability so thumbs up Maybe certain parts of the tech tree only unlock after you've researched hub technologies a certain number of times etc.
Destructible UFOs - the UFO outer hulls should be destructible, which means we'll have to redesign them visually too. For a new game I would like to see completely new UFO's as mentioned above. Interesting and unique UFO's would be very fun (read deadly!). Automated defences? Living ships? Shields still active (especially if UFO is undamaged) - you'd have to kill an alien who was outside the UFO and hope they were carrying something that would deactivate the shields. You might even have to abort the mission with the device in tow, research it and how to use it so that you could actually enter the UFO in subsequent missions.
Vertical Terrain - we should have hills etc in the game, rather than purely flat maps with buildings offering the only verticality. Thumbs up
XCOM Cover System - I think the cover system in XCOM was very easy to understand and also integrated 'leaning' in an intuitive way, whereas our cover system was a bit of a mess. I think we'd probably switch to their cover system. The only issue with the cover system in Xenonaughts is how the calculation for multiple "covers" are worked out.
Soldier Colour Customisation - I want to redesign the armours so they are more recognisable from silhouette, allowing people to customise their colours of their troops (including having role-specific colour schemes). Would like to see this very much. Maybe individual colouring for each unit? I'm an older gamer as some previous posters so it's not just a younger thing.
UI - the existing UI is a bit of a mess, particularly with regards to the strategy layer, so we'd redo that. Honestly it's not bad imo. It was close enough to Xcom to play fine. For some reason, the second time I played Xenonaughts (after a longish break) I couldnt find where the "Build new base" key was for 10 minutes or so lol.
Air Combat - I'm not sure exactly how I'd redesign this yet, but I think it could do with further improvement. Turn based? Just an idea. I can't really think of anything else to add.
Tutorial - the game should use the Iceland Incident as a playable tutorial that explains the setting and the basic game mechanics. A dlc for original Xenonaughts yes.
Modding Tools - we've been working on some pretty cool game editors and level editors, so the modding / translation / level creation tools will be much better than in Xenonauts 1 and will handle the "modular mod" stuff automatically. Great!
Two questions - one, would you buy an improved version of Xenonauts again if we made it? Secondly, what annoyed you about the first game and what do you think we should improve?
It depends on how "Improved" it was. I would want more of a unique experience than another upgrade of Xcom. I wanted an upgrade of Xcom, and Xenonaughts gave me that.
I can't really think of anything that annoyed me about Xenonaughts. Some things weren't readily apparent e.g. how the smoke in smoke grenades actually work - 1) can you throw them at the aliens, 2) only cover your own units, or 3) can you throw them in between your units and aliens as cover 4) Are Andron's/other mechanical units affected etc. Maybe just a more verbose xenopedia would solve that kind of issue.
Thank's for airing your thoughts!
