Phydeaux

What about the strategic layer? Will time be spent there? Deciding where to build a base to respond to the Xenonauts threat, setting up supply-lines, searching for Xenonaut bases, and more interestingly: Deciding on force compositions for various missions. If the aliens are sending a ship to attack a human base, they will want to wipe it out. If they know what the humans normally field and what they seem to be ineffective against, it would only stand to reason they would send more of those.

Agreed: This is a pretty scary change. I'm not so sure about it.

Breathtaking. It sets the tone so well, and looks very much like a 60s/70s science/engineering lab. The small talk thing seems out of place to me, but is ignorable, as you said. I don't think it's too busy. It's marvelous. If you had the resources to change the background over time, it will be even better. Though I've already purchased it, the artwork excites me and makes me want to buy the game.

chris, You've set the game in the 1970s. This makes using the cold war incredibly obvious, especially because you're not using the hyper-50s stylized feel of X-Com. Your tone looks more period-authentic, which probably makes everyone think of the cold war. It jumps out at me that you're not using it: It feels like something's missing. What if the already ever-present threat of nuclear armageddon appeared to be a constant risk. Score poorly one month, and you'll get messages about increasing geopolitical instability. In addition to the random cropcircle and storm events, there would be random events relating to the world's political situation. Wars, assasinations, terrorist strikes, and so on. They don't really mean anything, but they are an indicator that something is wrong. Aliens could have missions designed to worsen the global situation, as well. The main point is that nuclear war could save a player from a game that's doomed to failure. When the player does worse, and worse, and worse, the odds of a nuclear exchange grow higher, effectively putting the game out of its misery. In reality, it would simply be the game saving you from a 20 hour long death spiral. It causes no real additional complication to the game... it only seems like it does. It would look to the player, however, like nuclear war was the entire point of you setting it in the 1970s. The world ended. Nuclear War. Aliens caused it.

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While playing X-Com, I often went through soldier stats and began to group them based on their stats hitting certain limits. Soldiers with accuracy above a certain level were sharpshooters. High enough strength made you a grenadier. Good strength and accuracy made you a heavy weapons expert, and so on. I used to denote this on the soldier's name: John Doe (SS) I used to have a comprehensive set of prereqs for each soldier to meet, which assigned them to what I called 'Near Squad', 'Far Squad', and 'Elite Squad' (In honor of the X-Com Saga fanfics). Your squad assignment was based on your stats meeting certain requirements. I used to examine soldiers after every couple of missions to see what they qualified for. If I saw John Doe (ES), then I knew I had a badass. I'd equip him with the best stuff and send him with other ES members to do the most crucial work on the mission. I don't think I was the only one to play like this. It was tedious, but it was very helpful. Aside from medals, it seems to me that it would be very useful to create 'certifications' which soldiers can acquire as their skills grow. The only purpose of a certification is to show up on the soldier screen. It tells you, at a glance, who is competent at what. If the user could create custom certifications, then my 'Near/Far/Elite' ranking system would work out automatically. Rating my soldiers for particular tasks was useful. I'd develop a core of soldiers who were primary shooters, with the rest of the team designed to support them. The benefit to the player is removing this sort of micromanagement, while still reaping the rewards.