Topics

1

Offtopic / XCOM Apocalypse Review

« on: October 23, 2022, 10:36:21 pm »

Nice review from a point of view of an RPG nerd, who believes that XCOM and JA2 had superior combat, which should be introduced in D&D games:
https://lilura1.blogspot.com/2020/08/X-COM-Apocalypse-Walkthrough-Guide-Part-I-Cityscape-Strategy-Battlescape-Tactics.html


It is interesting that D&D ruleset does have accommodation for verticality, destructability and swimming. I.e. D&D 3.5 edition has flight, passwall and transmute rock to mud spells. But these are absent from the computer implementations due to the gameworld being badly hardcoded, resulting into such spells leading to sequence breaks. Then most 3d engines don't support destructability.

2

Offtopic / RetroAhoy XCOM documentary

« on: October 15, 2022, 03:04:31 pm »

3

Playthroughs / Nookrium OXC Lets Play

« on: September 06, 2022, 08:44:52 pm »

Nookrium is a youtuber who shows of all kinds of obscure indie strategy games:

4

Offtopic / Shadows of Forbidden Gods

« on: September 03, 2022, 11:20:37 am »

Not a tactics game, but a Master of Orion style grand strategy, building on top of the reverse XCOM idea, where player infiltrates human civilization. The setting is fantasy, but I think one can easily replace it with modern day world or a galactic empire.

Surprisingly got a few similar ideas to what I have in my game, and uses the same royalty free tileset, which looks completely out of place there, since the game uses Master of Orion like location graph for its map, and hexes are a just a background, which sharply clashes with game mechanics and the art direction. But I guess the game was made by a single person, who has great table top game design talent, but little art and or programming skills.

5

Offtopic / "Dark Souls of XCOM clones"

« on: August 25, 2022, 06:44:05 pm »

Now I never heard about Spellcross before, and the reviewer says he liked XCOM Apocalypse more because it had real time mode, but well replacing an alien invasion with a Tolkien one sounds like a cool idea for some OXC mod

Maybe I will add the reverse to one chapter of Spell of Mastery: a wizard opened a portal to Soviet Russia, allowing Stalin to extend USSR into another dimension

6

Offtopic / Microsoft Buried Their DOTA/PUBG?

« on: July 05, 2022, 04:32:48 pm »

Microsoft hired the best Japanese devs to develop an action version of magic the gathering, but then just cancelled the finished project:

7

Open Feedback / Please change my nickname to NancyGold

« on: October 02, 2021, 03:49:08 pm »

Hi! I've finally found enough courage to start transitioning, so my old name is obsolete now.

I don't want to flood the forum with dead accounts, so asking if it is possible to rename me to "Nancy" or "NancyGold" (if Nancy is already taken)?

BTW, I'm surprised other girls play XCOM too, because I have seen a few girls here.

Dank u wel!

8

Offtopic / Disciples Tactics

« on: September 17, 2021, 04:48:19 pm »

Latest Disciples is actually a squad based tactics game. Looks like a dumbed down XCOM Apocalypse (factions and the stuff):

9

Offtopic / Vandal Hearts 2

« on: July 23, 2021, 11:35:34 pm »

New mod introduces a normal XCOM-style turn order, so it is a fun game now:

10

Offtopic / Jagged Alliance 2

« on: July 10, 2021, 11:36:45 pm »

Do you people still play it?

Got reminded about the game by the recent news about a squad of mercs breaking into Haitan dictator's residency and eliminating him. Although the guys have failed to get out of the country. Needs to be made into a custom JA map.

11

Offtopic / Merit's Galactic Reunion

« on: June 09, 2021, 10:48:42 pm »

Another game similar in spirit to X-COM, but on a grander scale, with simplified tactical combat.

Includes protecting your planet base from the invading Mongrul aliens.

12

Offtopic / Alpha Storm (1997 DOS game)

« on: April 14, 2021, 12:30:41 am »

Really obscure late DOS game, nobody heard about.
The concept is similar to XCOM, but with its own twist:
Instead of a tactical battlescape, there is an first-person exploration of the alien ship interiors (randomly generated).
Instead of a single planet, there is a galaxy.
Instead of the martian alien base, there is an alien mother ship destroying stars.

13

Help / XCOM Aspect Ration and Gamma

« on: September 19, 2020, 05:25:34 pm »

Obviously XCOM renders image int 320x200, because DOS, but old CRTs still displayed 4:3. Old CRTs also had very different gamma curves from the today LCDs: on CRT picture looked much more brighter and contrast. Therefore the question: should one correct the gamma and the aspect ratio, while making mods and just playing the game?

Here I've scaled TFTD screenshot  to 640x480, which makes game look very different from what you will get with OXC or DOSBox. In fact, characters now have proper proportions.

14

Offtopic / Line of Defense Tactics

« on: June 18, 2020, 10:24:28 pm »

One of Derek Smart's last games is actually a real time XCOM clone. A few nice ideas, but really unfinished.

15

Offtopic / Warhammer 40K Chapter Master

« on: April 27, 2020, 08:49:44 pm »

Looks like a cool mod. Haven't played it myself. In fact I have played only Chaos Gate, which as I understand runs on the XCOM Apocalypse engine, or a very precise clone of it.