First X-COM now Chaos: The Battle of Wizards, Julian Gollop remakes are coming into fashion. About time. Yes, Gollop’s announced that he’s working on a new version of his 1985 Spectrum turn-based multiplayer classic.
Gollop’s been talking about a remakefor the past few days on Twitterbut earlier today he posted a blog post that goes into more detail about the project.
He discusses his reasoning for the remake:”the game was very popular with its players, despite is many flaws, quirky bugs and poor graphics. So the logical thing to do is to try to improve it and bring it up to date with today’s technology. […]The game also had great replay value because of its random, chaotic nature. No two games will turn out the same, and most of your plans and strategies won’t play out exactly the way you envisaged them.”
The mechanics that deserve to eb remade:”It was also a psychological game of bluff where you were never sure whether an opponent’s creature was an illusion unless someone disbelieved it. If you chose to disbelieve it yourself then you were foregoing a valuable opportunity for another spell.”
And why he’s made this decision now: “I have been working at Ubisoft Sofia for more than five years and seen the studio grow steadily. I was the creative director for the recently released Vita game, ‘Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation.’ I left Ubisoft in March this year, ostensibly on six month paternity leave to help my wife look after our twin babies. I decided that I wanted to stay at my home with my family for a while longer. So now I am on my own, working in my bedroom, just like I did all those years ago when I was coding in Z80 assembly language on my 48k ZX Spectrum.”
A few further details have appeared on Twitter as Gollop’s been responding to questions: