Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Unofficial Tabletop X-Com Game Given Away

Posted by simoniker on from the crt-therapy dept.

eebe writes "It's a common complaint that modern games are never as good as the games we all played when we were younger. Sequels never seem to do the original justice, and remakes never get finished. What Paul and myself have done is take one of the best games of all time, X-Com: Enemy Unknown (UFO Defense for the Americans) and turned it into an unofficial, freely downloadable / printable tabletop war game, 'X-Com: Tactical'. What better way to spend an evening sending your Chrysalids against your friend whose troops are only just walking out of the Skyranger?"

11 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. formula by Sparr0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    1) Make cool game
    2) post story on /. with link to site
    3) put micropayment donation links on site
    4) Prof^H^H^H^H^H wonder why the payment counter stays at 0

  2. Re:A remake or a squeal... by UltimaL337Star · · Score: 3, Insightful

    X-com came from a land very much long before the xbox

  3. Re:Interesting notion... by Vaevictis666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's quite a few actually. Warcraft3, Civ, Age of Empires to name a few. Ask around at your local comic book / game shop, I'm sure there's others.

  4. Does disclaimer permit infringement? by cybermancer · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The X-Com concept, trademark and copyright belongs to Infogrames Interactive. We do not intend to infringe on any IP owned by Infogrames. This game is fan work and was designed for fun not money.
    Interesting notion since it appears that the game is made up of graphics, concepts and characters from the game how they don't intend to infringe any IP owned by Infogrames. Curious if they even bothered contacting anyone for permission or if they are operating on the better to beg forgiveness then seek permission premise.

    I see this a lot, where someone obviously creates a derivitive work, but then puts a little disclaimer on it and hopes for the best. Now IANAL, but someone could create something like this for personal use without muich worry, but it would seem that distributing it online, with a contributions link, would be crossing the fair-use line.

    Whatever the outcome it looks like a lot of effort was put into this, and it may actually be fun to play. I wish them the best, and hope they don't need a legal defense.

    --
    "Anything is possible with enough programmers, time and pizza." (Substitute caffeine for time as needed.)
    1. Re:Does disclaimer permit infringement? by reinard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      While you're probably right, the game is so old, that I highly doubt there is any financial loss for Microprose caused by this activity - quite to the contrary this may actually re-generate some interest in the game and cause some sales.

      So while you're right, they may be betting on Microprose realizing they only have to gain from it.

      --
      Reinard
    2. Re:Does disclaimer permit infringement? by eebe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I grant you that some of the images come from the game. Most of these are also freely available on websites around the world.

      Maps were entirely created by hand by Paul. You can't just cut and paste an isometric image into a topdown view.

      Legalwise it wasn't really an issue. We just wanted to play the game. If Infogrames has a problem then we will deal with that then, but I really don't think a game that they no longer sell would cause them to much grief.

      --
      - Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are now master of your own fate.
  5. Re:Interesting notion... by Nasarius · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doom, Diablo 2 (included with the Collector's Edition), and Civilization, just offhand.

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
  6. wait a second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read the rules after my first post of excitement and my opinion has changed a little.

    Don't get me wrong, I applaud the effort here, but these guys need to think about how to design a board game a little rather than just use the same mechanics that the PC game used. This is just all too complicated to be entertaining, having to keep track of time units for individual units? All of these opportunity fire rolls and intricate stat tracking? No way is even the most hard core diehard X-Com lover going to be able to tollerate this long enough to get through an actual game.

    The best model for an x-com table top game would be the sometimes out of print games workshop game "necromunda" it was a squad based game, hand to hand and fire combat, it covered movement, line of site and all of that far simpler than these rules do. Hell the game even featured an xp and skill advancement system and used 3d terrain. It would simply be a matter of generating stats for the x-com weapons and units, and it was a hell of a lot easier to play.

    I mean really, I want to love this thing, but I just can't look past such bad game design.

  7. The best part... by baywulf · · Score: 2, Funny

    My eyes have full screen anti-aliasing when I remove my glasses. No more jaggies!

  8. Re:Interesting notion... by Torgo's+Pizza · · Score: 2, Informative

    Which is interesting in that Age of Empires is loosely (very loosely) based on Civilization, which in turn was based on a board game called "Civilization". So it really has gone from board game, to computer game, back to board game. I know this from working on Age of Empires and with Bruce Shelley myself.

  9. Xcom lives by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Two of the original X-com developers have created a little game with very similar game-play, primarily to be a turn based network game. It's not nearly as grand in scope as X-com but if you liked the battles, you'll like this:

    http://www.lasersquadnemesis.com/

    --
    ----- .sig: file not found