Steve Posted April 15, 2014 April 15, 2014: Do you like aliens? No-- you like KILLING aliens. And so does Jake Solomon. He's made a career of it, in fact. But how? Learn all the alien-killing secrets from the Creative Director of Firaxis's XCOM: Enemy Unknown (as well as a little side talk about his career, his mentorship by Sid Meier, and the design philosophy that brought one of strategy gaming's all-time classics back into the modern age.) Games Discussed: X-Com, Civilization, Civilization 2, Civilization 3, Civilization 4, Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Sid Meier's SimGolf, Civilization Revolution, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM: Enemy Within, Gone Home, rekall.tumblr.comLINK TO READ THE CAST https://www.idlethumbs.net/tonecontrol/episodes/jake-solomon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Blambo Posted April 15, 2014 Yeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mikemariano Posted April 15, 2014 Wait, do you also kill aliens in Pirates! and SimGolf? I guess I'll have to listen to Tone Control to find out! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stuart Posted April 16, 2014 No link to the episode on the main thread post? I expect more professionalism from you, Hot Scoops! In all seriousness, been waiting for this post dearly. I shall give it a listen while playing a bit of Enemy Unknown. The full Solomon experience. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jake Posted April 16, 2014 No link to the episode on the main thread post? I expect more professionalism from you, Hot Scoops! Fixed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Posted April 16, 2014 Wait, do you also kill aliens in Pirates! and SimGolf? When Jake Solomon's playing you do. No link to the episode on the main thread post? I expect more professionalism from you, Hot Scoops! I'm Human Garbage. Thanks Jake Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gormongous Posted April 16, 2014 The big revelation for me is that Steve grew up in the West County. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Posted April 16, 2014 The big revelation for me is that Steve grew up in the West County. I played Link to the Past and Super Contra for the first time at Chesterfield Mall when Nintendo was touring around to malls with SNES demo kiosks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Posted April 16, 2014 There are a lot of great quotes from Jake Solomon in the cast, but the section about knowing he was happy with what he had and not wanting to lose it was, I felt, really powerful. (starting at the ~43:00 mark) "Perspective does more to make you happy than anything else, and failure is the only thing that's going to give you perspective." -Jake Solomon. Grand stuff. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zerofiftyone Posted April 16, 2014 XCOM is great. Jake Solomon is great. I'm going to enjoy this one a lot. Thanks Steve. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sclpls Posted April 16, 2014 I played Link to the Past and Super Contra for the first time at Chesterfield Mall when Nintendo was touring around to malls with SNES demo kiosks! !!! I remember that. Also, Steve, you made a comment on twitter about Action Half-Life that brought back a flash of memories for me that I had completely forgotten about. That led to me recalling a Night of the Living Dead type mod for Half-Life as well that I unfortunately don't remember the name of. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
osmosisch Posted April 16, 2014 There are a lot of great quotes from Jake Solomon in the cast, but the section about knowing he was happy with what he had and not wanting to lose it was, I felt, really powerful. (starting at the ~43:00 mark) "Perspective does more to make you happy than anything else, and failure is the only thing that's going to give you perspective." -Jake Solomon. Grand stuff.Yeah, came in here to post that the section on the importance of being allowed to fail is amazing. Especially as a parent that's such a tough, important lesson. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
melmer Posted April 16, 2014 We need the GameStop video up in here http://www.xboxachievements.com/news/news-13010-XCOM--Enemy-Unknown---Firaxis--Jake-Solomon-Sells-His-Gaming-Sandwich.html Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bjorn Posted April 16, 2014 The big revelation for me is that Steve grew up in the West County. I'm floored that Jake is a Kansas City guy originally, don't think I knew that. And that Steve was born in KC. I'm not used to having people in the games industry have roots or connections around here. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gormongous Posted April 16, 2014 I'm floored that Jake is a Kansas City guy originally, don't think I knew that. And that Steve was born in KC. I'm not used to having people in the games industry have roots or connections around here. Yeah, I guess the fact that most game development happens on the coasts has left me thinking that game devs only come from there, too. I'm not from St. Louis, where I currently hang my hat, but I'm a Dallas boy and went to college in Iowa, so the whole Midwest is pretty fundamental to my identity, at least once I got over my petulant rejection of the culture by reason of politics. I really enjoyed hearing a couple hints of that in the first few minutes of Jake and Steve talking. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tberton Posted April 16, 2014 We need the GameStop video up in here http://www.xboxachievements.com/news/news-13010-XCOM--Enemy-Unknown---Firaxis--Jake-Solomon-Sells-His-Gaming-Sandwich.html That video is hilarious. "You're eighteen, aren't you?" Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sclpls Posted April 16, 2014 Midway used to have a pretty large office in Chicago I believe, and like pinball manufacturers were based out of there too. Of course these days it seems like the only stuff coming out of Chicago is indie stuff like Kentucky Route Zero... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Golden Calf Posted April 17, 2014 His riff on why he liked the original XCOM was gold. About how important it is that the game acts like it doesn't care about you, but instead just treats you as a regular actor within its rule set, as opposed to some pre-ordained hero. How that makes the experience feel authentic. It made me think about Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Far Cry 3, all games that I really loved running around in, but couldn't care less about the main story line. With Far Cry 3, I cleared all the camps, tried maybe 3 story missions, then never turned it on again. With the other two, I ran around for 100+ hours, developing my character and building up a found story, and though I did end up completing the main missions, I absolutely didn't give a shit about those sections. There's something fundamentally unheroic about being a hero in those worlds: the games go out of their way to flatter you with particle effects and sweeping music, but the problem was solved before you even got there, by the people who decided on the necessary inputs. It feels like riding the Disneyland Indiana Jones ride with someone patting you on the back, saying "Good job!" at every turn. I think the subsequent discussion of how Gone Home fits that paradigm was really astute. Makes me wish I could have been at GDC for that talk : ( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Posted April 17, 2014 I think the subsequent discussion of how Gone Home fits that paradigm was really astute. Makes me wish I could have been at GDC for that talk : ( Well here it is! For free! http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020376/Why-Is-Gone-Home-a Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Golden Calf Posted April 18, 2014 Oh awesome! I loved the bit about the cheese wheels. The unnecessary stuff at the margins that allow for personal flourishes and self-directed exploration are so important to why I enjoy so many games. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Arathain Posted April 22, 2014 Thanks, this was good. Some genuinely great stuff on the importance of being allowed to fail. The concept of player-centered design makes a lot of sense, and I can see how this informs a lot of the design of XCOM and other Firaxis titles. There's a sense I get from Mr Solomon from interviews he's done in the past couple of years, including this one, that he's quite self-critical over some of the design of XCOM. This is healthy up to a point, and true up to a point. Certainly, there are some flaws to the design of the game, some of which might be able to be corrected, and some of them are simply products of the decisions that were made. I would like him to keep in mind that the design of the game is excellent. Really great. There's so much tense decision making at every level. I wonder if some of it comes from those gamers who play games like this for 200 hours, uncover some optimal play strategies, and declare the game broken, loudly and critically, on every thread about the game they can find. I'm not really sure that's ever the primary audience you should be listening to, or even trying to design for. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chairman Yang Posted April 25, 2014 Awesome discussion. I wonder why Solomon's first XCOM design (the one that essentially remade the original game) failed. Could it have succeeded by making some judicious cuts and smaller redesigns rather than building a very different game? Don't get me wrong, I love the X-COM we got, even if it has some fundamental differences in the type of appeal it's going for. I'm just curious why a supposedly timeless classic has been so difficult to update. And not just by Solomon, as the long trail of failed XCOM clones will attest. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
monkehhh Posted April 25, 2014 I can confirm that XCOM just became one of my favourite games - generating a random abduction event in the city where I live (Leeds, UK) and letting me catch my first live alien there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
