INNOVATION
QThe hidden sight system introduced by Mythos is just
one example of the innovative systems Mythos Games
introduced. X-COM’s fantastic success would go on to
influence many games. Diablo, for example, was originally
intended to be a UFO-like title before a switch to real-time
combat was made and Baldur’s Gate’s pauseable combat
system was directly inspired by X-COM: Apocalypse.STRATEGY
QMythos was, fundamentally, a strategy game studio.
From the tactical combat of Laser Squad, through to the
mythical fantasy realm of Lords Of Chaos, to the blend
of organisational management and turn-based battle
of X-COM, all are connected by a focus on deep strategy
systems that create thrilling emergent moments through
a combination of complex systems.what made the game work. “The idea that you
have this squad, you recruit them and can name them
and nurture them, you try and get them to improve
by sending them on missions but sending them on
missions is very risky. You’ve got this constant dilemma:
I want to succeed at missions, I need my best soldiers,
but I don’t want them to die.”
Following the game’s success, Microprose told
Mythos they wanted a sequel done in six months.
Mythos baulked at the idea and ended up licensing the
code to Microprose to develop the sequel, X-COM:
Terror From The Deep (though it ended up taking
Microprose 12 months). Mythos was also persuaded to
start work on another follow-up game, rather than the
original project it had initially hoped to do. This would
become X-COM: Apocalypse.
“We had a lot of problems with the development
there,” Julian recalls. “The main things was the shift
from turn-based to real-time. The RTS wave was about
to hit, so I thought, let’s try and make a real-time combat
system. It’s not an RTS in what people imagine an RTS
to be but still it had real-time. Our innovation was you
can pause the game action by hitting the space bar
and then give orders to your soldiers to your heart’s
content and then hit the space bar again and that would
unpause the game. That was really tough.They said, ‘No we
want to market this as
an RTS, role-playing
games don’t sell’
Julian Gollop“The other problem we had was with the art,”
Julian continues. “The art was being done entirely
in-house at Microprose UK in a similar arrangement to
what we had before, but they put a larger team on it
and they sort of tried to redesign the game for us. The
art team was saying we know how to make games,
you don’t, therefore you should do it like this, this and
this. We had to argue a lot over some of these things.
They had problems just producing the stuff, particularly
because we required isometric graphics which were all
chopped up into these little tiles and they were trying to
use 3D software.
“It was pretty difficult. Bizarrely, for the aliens, they
had this famous science fiction artist [Tim White]
design the enemies in plasticine – giant plasticine
models – and they were going to scan them into their
3D software, which didn’t work. They had to hastily
design and build the aliens in their 3D software and they
didn’t come out too well. They were little blobby things.
We went through several different producers, which
caused problems,” Julian says. “That was until our final
producer James Hawkins, who was actually good. We
managed to get the game finished with him, finally.
“I wasn’t terribly happy with it,” Julian reflects. “I
wasn’t happy with the art, I wasn’t happy with the
level design. I was quite proud of some aspects of it:THE DNA OF MYTHOS GAMES
» [PC] A couple of silly mistakes in UFO and a mission can easily end up in disaster.INSTANT
EXPERT
Q Mythos Games is best known for creating the
X-COM strategy series.
Q Mythos Games was cofounded by Julian Gollop,
his brother Nick Gollop and their father.
Q Mythos Games was based in Harlow, England.
Q Prior to founding Mythos Games, Julian Gollop
created Time Lords, Islandia, Battlecars, Nebula,
Rebelstar Raiders, Chaos: The Battle Of Wizards,
Rebelstar Raiders, Rebelstar and Rebelstar II.
Q Mythos Games was preceded by Target Games,
which consisted of Julian Gollop, his father and
Ian Terry.
Q Mythos worked with several publishers over
the course of its histor y: Blade Software,
Microprose, and Virgin Interactive.
Q Mythos Games lasted for 13 years. It was
founded in 1988 and closed its doors in 2001
after Titus Interactive, which had purchased
Virgin, cancelled the studio’s next project:
The Dreamland Chronicles.
Q The studio was known primarily for its
turn-based strategy combat, though it also
experimented with real-time systems.
Q Mythos most successful game was the first in
the X-COM series, UFO: Enemy Unknown. The
game sold over 600,000 copies on PC alone.
Q The studio’s games were heavily influenced by
tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons.
STRA
QMytho
From th
mythica
of organ
of X-COM
systems
a combigame sold over 600,000 copies on PC alone.
QThe studio’s games were heavily influenced by
tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons.