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Monsters in the Dark: The Making of X-COM: UFO Defense
It is the Year 1994…
In North America, turn-based strategy games were trampled by flashier video games like Doom and Mortal Kombat. All but one: Sid Meier's Civilization, a game of conquest and megahit developed by Maryland-based MicroProse.
Over in southwest England, the producers at MicroProse UK aspired to design a tactical game that matched or exceeded the success of their American counterparts, who viewed the UK branch as nothing more than a support studio. Nearby, a bespectacled teenage boy toiled away on his home computer, dreaming of the day his programming aptitude would catch up to the epic campaigns unfolding across his imagination.
From his early experiments in board games to digital battlefields that lit up bestseller charts, Monsters in the Dark charts the career of legendary designer Julian Gollop through the creation of 1994's X-COM, a terrifying and terrifyingly deep wargame hailed as "the finest PC game" (IGN) and "a bona fide classic" (GameSpot).
In North America, turn-based strategy games were trampled by flashier video games like Doom and Mortal Kombat. All but one: Sid Meier's Civilization, a game of conquest and megahit developed by Maryland-based MicroProse.
Over in southwest England, the producers at MicroProse UK aspired to design a tactical game that matched or exceeded the success of their American counterparts, who viewed the UK branch as nothing more than a support studio. Nearby, a bespectacled teenage boy toiled away on his home computer, dreaming of the day his programming aptitude would catch up to the epic campaigns unfolding across his imagination.
From his early experiments in board games to digital battlefields that lit up bestseller charts, Monsters in the Dark charts the career of legendary designer Julian Gollop through the creation of 1994's X-COM, a terrifying and terrifyingly deep wargame hailed as "the finest PC game" (IGN) and "a bona fide classic" (GameSpot).
197 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2021
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79 people want to read
About the author
David L. Craddock
45 books104 followersDavid L. Craddock lives with his wife in Ohio. He is the bestselling author of
Stay Awhile and Listen
: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire - Book I, and
Heritage
: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles, an epic fantasy series for young adults. Please follow along with him on his website/blog at
DavidLCraddock.com
.
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May 2, 2021I wrote Monsters in the Dark, so I won't cheat by giving myself a starred review. I like to review every book I read, however, if only to sort out my thoughts on what I thought, felt, and experienced while writing it. If you like that sort of thing, read on!
Monsters is a product of serendipity. I wrote Stay Awhile and Listen: Book I, my first major release, over 2011 through 2013. I'd decided to publish independently, and believed (correctly) that endorsements from game developers would give the book some clout when I cold-emailed members of the games press to cover it on their websites and in their magazines.
While writing Stay Awhile 1, I learned that X-COM, Julian Gollop's seminal turn-based strategy game, had a huge influence on Diablo. Co-creators and Blizzard North co-founders David Brevik and Erich Schaefer played it during every free moment while working on their roguelike—yes, Diablo started out as a roguelike! Turn-based, perma-death, the works—and found X-COM's atmosphere particularly absorbing. The tension they felt every time they took so much as a step carried over to Diablo.
I contacted Julian, shared that story with him, and asked if he'd be kind enough to read Stay Awhile 1 and, if he liked it, write a short testimonial. He responded, which was freaking cool, and agreed to read the book. Best of all: He loved it. I emailed him on or around October 31, 2013, the day Stay Awhile 1's eBook edition went live, to thank him again for his testimonial. Then I fired a shot in the dark: I asked if he'd be interested in doing interviews with me about X-COM and his early career leading up to hit.
And he said yes.
One book could be a fluke. Two… could also be a fluke. But I took it another way. I had a career on my hands.
Over 2013 and '14, Julian put me in touch with his brother Nick; developers from MicroProse UK, the studio that published X-COM under the name UFO: Enemy Unknown, including Stephen Hand, Mike Brunton, John Broomhall, Pete Moreland, Paul Hibbard; and developers from earlier in Julian's career, who had played a part on earlier games such as Rebelstar and Lords of Chaos.
I finished my interviews quickly, but my prognostication (and fervent hope) that I had a career on my hands came true. I sold a novel, and gained more freelance clients. I was a full-time writer. In practical terms, that meant I had to prioritize projects that brought income in sooner rather than later.
The X-COM book—then known as The X-COM Files which I'm aware is a terrible name—took a backseat. The freelance portion of my career was tenuous enough in the early 2010s due to the economy still having yet to recover from getting blitzed in 2008. I was constantly hustling to keep and find clients. I still wrote books at that time—I've published at least one per year since Stay Awhile 1—but had to focus on smaller works. The X-COM book would not be small.
So I let the interviews sit, and I felt terrible about it. I wanted Julian, Nick, Steve, and the other developers who had so graciously given me their time to know that time hadn't gone to waste. Last year, despite COVID wreaking havoc on the economy, I was doing very well. So well that I downsized my current projects to two: a long read for Shacknews on the history of the Xbox, which you can read at Shacknews.com; and "the X-COM book," which became Monsters.
Reader, I had a blast writing that first draft of Monsters. I outlined in two to three days, and wrote the first draft in seven weeks. I've gotten much faster at writing—I write thousands of words per day because, again, it's literally my job!—but writing Monsters never felt like work. I realized that my years-long delay, while frustrating, had been for the best. I had grown immensely as a writer, and felt ready to tell the story.
Some books just click. Monsters in the Dark was one of those books. Many of my Kickstarter backers are reading it now. Many of my Indiegogo backers will be reading it in a few weeks. And if you missed those campaigns, don't fret—you'll get to read it soon, too. I hope you enjoy it, and hope the fun I had writing it shines through every page as brightly for you as it did for me.
David L. Craddock
Monsters is a product of serendipity. I wrote Stay Awhile and Listen: Book I, my first major release, over 2011 through 2013. I'd decided to publish independently, and believed (correctly) that endorsements from game developers would give the book some clout when I cold-emailed members of the games press to cover it on their websites and in their magazines.
While writing Stay Awhile 1, I learned that X-COM, Julian Gollop's seminal turn-based strategy game, had a huge influence on Diablo. Co-creators and Blizzard North co-founders David Brevik and Erich Schaefer played it during every free moment while working on their roguelike—yes, Diablo started out as a roguelike! Turn-based, perma-death, the works—and found X-COM's atmosphere particularly absorbing. The tension they felt every time they took so much as a step carried over to Diablo.
I contacted Julian, shared that story with him, and asked if he'd be kind enough to read Stay Awhile 1 and, if he liked it, write a short testimonial. He responded, which was freaking cool, and agreed to read the book. Best of all: He loved it. I emailed him on or around October 31, 2013, the day Stay Awhile 1's eBook edition went live, to thank him again for his testimonial. Then I fired a shot in the dark: I asked if he'd be interested in doing interviews with me about X-COM and his early career leading up to hit.
And he said yes.
One book could be a fluke. Two… could also be a fluke. But I took it another way. I had a career on my hands.
Over 2013 and '14, Julian put me in touch with his brother Nick; developers from MicroProse UK, the studio that published X-COM under the name UFO: Enemy Unknown, including Stephen Hand, Mike Brunton, John Broomhall, Pete Moreland, Paul Hibbard; and developers from earlier in Julian's career, who had played a part on earlier games such as Rebelstar and Lords of Chaos.
I finished my interviews quickly, but my prognostication (and fervent hope) that I had a career on my hands came true. I sold a novel, and gained more freelance clients. I was a full-time writer. In practical terms, that meant I had to prioritize projects that brought income in sooner rather than later.
The X-COM book—then known as The X-COM Files which I'm aware is a terrible name—took a backseat. The freelance portion of my career was tenuous enough in the early 2010s due to the economy still having yet to recover from getting blitzed in 2008. I was constantly hustling to keep and find clients. I still wrote books at that time—I've published at least one per year since Stay Awhile 1—but had to focus on smaller works. The X-COM book would not be small.
So I let the interviews sit, and I felt terrible about it. I wanted Julian, Nick, Steve, and the other developers who had so graciously given me their time to know that time hadn't gone to waste. Last year, despite COVID wreaking havoc on the economy, I was doing very well. So well that I downsized my current projects to two: a long read for Shacknews on the history of the Xbox, which you can read at Shacknews.com; and "the X-COM book," which became Monsters.
Reader, I had a blast writing that first draft of Monsters. I outlined in two to three days, and wrote the first draft in seven weeks. I've gotten much faster at writing—I write thousands of words per day because, again, it's literally my job!—but writing Monsters never felt like work. I realized that my years-long delay, while frustrating, had been for the best. I had grown immensely as a writer, and felt ready to tell the story.
Some books just click. Monsters in the Dark was one of those books. Many of my Kickstarter backers are reading it now. Many of my Indiegogo backers will be reading it in a few weeks. And if you missed those campaigns, don't fret—you'll get to read it soon, too. I hope you enjoy it, and hope the fun I had writing it shines through every page as brightly for you as it did for me.
David L. Craddock
December 22, 2021
Yup, this is a book about the creation of a video game published in 1994. A game that many feel was one of the best games of all time, especially if you enjoy turn-based strategy. I'm one of these believers, so my thoughts on this book are going to hold just a tiny bit of bias (Hah! "tiny").
If you are reading this review, then you are likely already familiar with the game. If not, then I dare you to brave the (now) dated graphics and give it a shot (it's even on Steam). If you cannot handle playing though the pixelated graphics of the original, there are some recent reboots of XCOM that are easy to recommend.
...
The game had a significant impact on me. Myself and many gamers recognise how X-Com has inspired many games since its release, whether the it's the scale of the isometric view, the turn-based strategy gameplay, or the theme. Most game developers that I've worked with are not shy to admit how much it's inspired them in their work.
Though I could never forget that game, I *had* given up my hopes to play a newer version, until Jake Solomon of Firaxis rebooted the series in 2012
Playing this reboot intensified my memories of the original and had me remembering the feelings I had when playing late at night, with the eerie ambient music and screeching aliens, getting one more mission in before sneaking to bed for school the next morning.
After the release of the reboot, I saw the GDC interview with the original creator, Julian Gollop and Jake Solomon.
This inspired me to start to dig for more information about the creation of the original X-Com... and it wasn't long till I found David Craddock's book, "Monsters in the Dark".
I'm not great at reviewing, so I will keep this simple:
This book kept my geek mind engaged and satisfied my curiosities.
If you want to read a book to give you a peek at the early days of game design, via an example of one of the most influential PC games ever made, then I recommend giving this a read. If you are a gamer and/or fan of the original game, then it is an easy recommendation.
If you are reading this review, then you are likely already familiar with the game. If not, then I dare you to brave the (now) dated graphics and give it a shot (it's even on Steam). If you cannot handle playing though the pixelated graphics of the original, there are some recent reboots of XCOM that are easy to recommend.
...
The game had a significant impact on me. Myself and many gamers recognise how X-Com has inspired many games since its release, whether the it's the scale of the isometric view, the turn-based strategy gameplay, or the theme. Most game developers that I've worked with are not shy to admit how much it's inspired them in their work.
Though I could never forget that game, I *had* given up my hopes to play a newer version, until Jake Solomon of Firaxis rebooted the series in 2012
Playing this reboot intensified my memories of the original and had me remembering the feelings I had when playing late at night, with the eerie ambient music and screeching aliens, getting one more mission in before sneaking to bed for school the next morning.
After the release of the reboot, I saw the GDC interview with the original creator, Julian Gollop and Jake Solomon.
This inspired me to start to dig for more information about the creation of the original X-Com... and it wasn't long till I found David Craddock's book, "Monsters in the Dark".
I'm not great at reviewing, so I will keep this simple:
This book kept my geek mind engaged and satisfied my curiosities.
If you want to read a book to give you a peek at the early days of game design, via an example of one of the most influential PC games ever made, then I recommend giving this a read. If you are a gamer and/or fan of the original game, then it is an easy recommendation.
May 2, 2023
"Enemy Unknown" Is one of my lifetime top games so I had to check this book out. Nothing too impressive here. Seems there just wasn't anything magical, just right people, right time, right place. Nearly 30 years and I wanna play it again.
August 25, 2022
Very interesting insights for X-Com fans, but quite sloppily written in a lot of ways.
There were around 4 passages that appear twice in the exact same wording throughout the book, for no apparent reason. Basically, it's as if the passage was accidentally copy-pasted to another section of the book.
One of them is "I’m more interested in games and systems and what emerges from those and what story we can tell through the player’s actions.", which is also the second last sentence in the book. Not the best example of the 4, but unfortunately I forgot to take a note of the others.
Also, there are a few hilariously wrong observations about the gameplay.
"Veterans got used to spending several minutes and much of their funding dismantling and reorganizing their base at the outset of each game." - Uh, no. Maybe some people did that, but that's almost certainly a terrible strategy, and not used in any speedrun or challenge run as far as I know. Base missions aren't so hard that you need to waste tons of money on them at the start of the game.
One of the last sentences in the book:
"For many, the personal connections forged with chess-pieces-turned-flesh-and-blood-and-pixels make Julian Gollop one of the all-time storytelling greats."
This must be one of the biggest exaggerations I've ever seen in video game journalism. Making you care about your units does not make you one of the all-time best story tellers. X-Com isn't about the story, and yes, it's great how it makes you tell your own stories, but that still doesn't make the designer one of the greatest storytellers.
I guess if you write 21 documentary books about video games in a relatively short time (by my counting from the bibliography in the book), this is to be expected.
But I do want to stretch that apart from this, for X-COM fans, this book contains countless fascinating insights into the game and how it was made, the design ideas, soundtrack composition and more, which ultimately makes it very much worth reading.
"We had such a lack of time to play the game through from beginning to end. I mean, I never played it through from beginning to end, which was a major mistake. It’s not that I didn’t try. I’d start playing through, then we’d come across some kind of bug that needed to be fixed, and we had to go back and change some stuff, and I’d have to start my playthrough again."
"Julian Gollop, Sid Meier, and similar designers are described as grognards, players who preferred the wargames of the 1970s and ’80s because they scratched their itch to indulge in learning and exploiting systems of rules whose complexity was matched only by the thrill of the possibilities they presented."
"To Julian Gollop, however, nothing has endeared UFO to players more than its complexity."
There were around 4 passages that appear twice in the exact same wording throughout the book, for no apparent reason. Basically, it's as if the passage was accidentally copy-pasted to another section of the book.
One of them is "I’m more interested in games and systems and what emerges from those and what story we can tell through the player’s actions.", which is also the second last sentence in the book. Not the best example of the 4, but unfortunately I forgot to take a note of the others.
Also, there are a few hilariously wrong observations about the gameplay.
"Veterans got used to spending several minutes and much of their funding dismantling and reorganizing their base at the outset of each game." - Uh, no. Maybe some people did that, but that's almost certainly a terrible strategy, and not used in any speedrun or challenge run as far as I know. Base missions aren't so hard that you need to waste tons of money on them at the start of the game.
One of the last sentences in the book:
"For many, the personal connections forged with chess-pieces-turned-flesh-and-blood-and-pixels make Julian Gollop one of the all-time storytelling greats."
This must be one of the biggest exaggerations I've ever seen in video game journalism. Making you care about your units does not make you one of the all-time best story tellers. X-Com isn't about the story, and yes, it's great how it makes you tell your own stories, but that still doesn't make the designer one of the greatest storytellers.
I guess if you write 21 documentary books about video games in a relatively short time (by my counting from the bibliography in the book), this is to be expected.
But I do want to stretch that apart from this, for X-COM fans, this book contains countless fascinating insights into the game and how it was made, the design ideas, soundtrack composition and more, which ultimately makes it very much worth reading.
"We had such a lack of time to play the game through from beginning to end. I mean, I never played it through from beginning to end, which was a major mistake. It’s not that I didn’t try. I’d start playing through, then we’d come across some kind of bug that needed to be fixed, and we had to go back and change some stuff, and I’d have to start my playthrough again."
"Julian Gollop, Sid Meier, and similar designers are described as grognards, players who preferred the wargames of the 1970s and ’80s because they scratched their itch to indulge in learning and exploiting systems of rules whose complexity was matched only by the thrill of the possibilities they presented."
"To Julian Gollop, however, nothing has endeared UFO to players more than its complexity."
June 14, 2021
X-COM holds a special place in my life. It was one of if not the very first computer games I bought. I played the heck out of that game; I bought the strategy guide (and got one for Apocalypse, even though I didn’t yet own it) and still fire up an emulator to give it a try every year or three. It’s just a wonderful tactics game, the like of which I’ve never really managed to find again—at least to my tastes.
So when I saw the Kickstarter for a Monsters in the Dark, I knew I had to give it a go.
Readings though it, I see a lot of myself in Julian Gollop. I love games, including taking them apart and putting them back together. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine spending so many years of effort to finally make something like X-COM.
I never really made the connection to Sid Meier (I only got into Civilization with Test of Time), but it makes sense in hindsight. There’s even a comment about the advise Meier was given to brand his games with his name. Given that I couldn’t have told you Gollop’s name before reading this book, it seems good advice.
Overall, it was a bit more about the people behind the game rather than the game itself, but in hindsight, that makes sense. If you ever played X-COM, it’s worth the read.
So when I saw the Kickstarter for a Monsters in the Dark, I knew I had to give it a go.
Readings though it, I see a lot of myself in Julian Gollop. I love games, including taking them apart and putting them back together. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine spending so many years of effort to finally make something like X-COM.
I never really made the connection to Sid Meier (I only got into Civilization with Test of Time), but it makes sense in hindsight. There’s even a comment about the advise Meier was given to brand his games with his name. Given that I couldn’t have told you Gollop’s name before reading this book, it seems good advice.
Overall, it was a bit more about the people behind the game rather than the game itself, but in hindsight, that makes sense. If you ever played X-COM, it’s worth the read.
February 3, 2022
RIP Captain Kablamo: Disintegrated Before His Time...
An historical retelling of video game development in a very different time. Behold the 80's and then the 90's as the story unfolds of X-COM and it's making. It's quite the story and as it's told here, I certainly got a renewed appreciation for the creative process that led to it's arrival.
It's a story of tinkering with board game rules that became an obsession and then a career. A story of small scale ingenuity and lateral thinking during what many consider to be something of a golden age in the history of video game development in the UK.
All told I rather enjoyed it. I'm of the wrong generation to have really appreciated the industry or the game itself at the time but reading this I really got a sense of the time, the place and the thinking that went into such an influential game.
If there is any issue with it, it feels like there could be more. Either about X-COM/XCOM as a series, the Gollops or the British video game industry itself as it changed with the times. A minor criticism to be sure as the book is very much about a particular game and it's makers. It just has a few threads I still wanted to pull on after the conclusion. Overall though, a strong effort and a great read for anyone interested in the material.
An historical retelling of video game development in a very different time. Behold the 80's and then the 90's as the story unfolds of X-COM and it's making. It's quite the story and as it's told here, I certainly got a renewed appreciation for the creative process that led to it's arrival.
It's a story of tinkering with board game rules that became an obsession and then a career. A story of small scale ingenuity and lateral thinking during what many consider to be something of a golden age in the history of video game development in the UK.
All told I rather enjoyed it. I'm of the wrong generation to have really appreciated the industry or the game itself at the time but reading this I really got a sense of the time, the place and the thinking that went into such an influential game.
If there is any issue with it, it feels like there could be more. Either about X-COM/XCOM as a series, the Gollops or the British video game industry itself as it changed with the times. A minor criticism to be sure as the book is very much about a particular game and it's makers. It just has a few threads I still wanted to pull on after the conclusion. Overall though, a strong effort and a great read for anyone interested in the material.
May 8, 2021
David Craddock has written a wonderful book that travels from Julian Gollop’s childhood to the current day. It details the creation of early strategy games by the famed developer and spends a good portion of its time talking about the creation of X-COM.
It’s a wonderfully written book, but it is very short. I wish it was twice as long!
It’s a wonderfully written book, but it is very short. I wish it was twice as long!
May 21, 2021
Great read by David L. Craddock that gives a glimpse of the genius mind of Julian Gollop, the creator of X-COM and the amazing group of people that worked on the game(s). Felt a bit short, but quite interesting nonetheless, particularly to any fan of the seminal game(s) or turn-based tactical genre.
February 2, 2022
This is technically a review for the special edition rather than the standard edition of the book. I will disclose here that I did back this book on Kickstarter as well.
First, my criticisms: speaking as a professional subeditor, the book could probably have done with another edit pass, what with the occasional misspelling and at least one odd line break I spotted while reading and some confusing wording or repetition throughout. Generally the writing largely stuck to the simple (but strong) narrative of the Gollop brothers gradually establishing themselves, but occasionally it would veer off on strange tangents like talking for a number of pages about the legacy of a WWII escape artist that inspired a board game that Gollop played once, or repeating points (and even specific quotes) about music later explored more in-depth in a later chapter.
I also think it could probably have done with more imagery either of earlier games or photos of the actual people and places involved in development (if any such thing existed or could be provided), but that's neither here nor there.
Much of the above I find forgivable because of the crowdsourced and independent nature of the production. Despite these setbacks, it there is a clear throughline of journalistic investigation that doggedly pieces together the story of X-Com in a way that has not really been told or explored before - at least, not in one place. The bulk of the book puts this story together well and flows in an easily digestible format, though there isn't quite the flare in the writing or construction that might be found in other behind-the-scenes works like Game Over or Masters of Doom.
More exciting is the Special Edition's additional material at the end consisting of the direct interviews with staff both at Mythos and Microprose UK, as well as Julian Gollop himself and Stephen Hand, a producer on the publisher side of things, both of whom are extraordinarily candid. This actually begins to resemble an 'oral history' style of history telling which I always find fascinating and could easily - with the right interviewees and subjects - form a more solid basis for a book (in the vein of Studs Terkel or other practitioners in the field).
First, my criticisms: speaking as a professional subeditor, the book could probably have done with another edit pass, what with the occasional misspelling and at least one odd line break I spotted while reading and some confusing wording or repetition throughout. Generally the writing largely stuck to the simple (but strong) narrative of the Gollop brothers gradually establishing themselves, but occasionally it would veer off on strange tangents like talking for a number of pages about the legacy of a WWII escape artist that inspired a board game that Gollop played once, or repeating points (and even specific quotes) about music later explored more in-depth in a later chapter.
I also think it could probably have done with more imagery either of earlier games or photos of the actual people and places involved in development (if any such thing existed or could be provided), but that's neither here nor there.
Much of the above I find forgivable because of the crowdsourced and independent nature of the production. Despite these setbacks, it there is a clear throughline of journalistic investigation that doggedly pieces together the story of X-Com in a way that has not really been told or explored before - at least, not in one place. The bulk of the book puts this story together well and flows in an easily digestible format, though there isn't quite the flare in the writing or construction that might be found in other behind-the-scenes works like Game Over or Masters of Doom.
More exciting is the Special Edition's additional material at the end consisting of the direct interviews with staff both at Mythos and Microprose UK, as well as Julian Gollop himself and Stephen Hand, a producer on the publisher side of things, both of whom are extraordinarily candid. This actually begins to resemble an 'oral history' style of history telling which I always find fascinating and could easily - with the right interviewees and subjects - form a more solid basis for a book (in the vein of Studs Terkel or other practitioners in the field).
November 28, 2025
A breezy account on how one of the most influential and revered PC strategy game of all time was created. It’s a quick read, almost like a long form magazine article, that it feels some details are glossed over. There’s a few chapters devoted to the background of the game’s recognized creator Julian Gollop, but after he was given the task of coding X-COM (or UFO in the UK), he became a side character in his own story. Or perhaps the development wasn’t as inherently dramatic as the story behind DOOM or Tetris, because the account sounds like a regular office project. Still, a nice read especially for fans of the franchise.
January 24, 2022
I remember loving X-COM: UFO Defense when I was in grad school, and so when I saw this book on Kickstarter, I went ahead and backed it. The book is interesting for both the specific story of this game's development and because of the general background on early game development. I also found the contrast between Gollop's experience writing computer games on his own versus as part of a publisher.
If you remember the game, and are interested in programing or game design you'll probably enjoy this.
If you remember the game, and are interested in programing or game design you'll probably enjoy this.
August 15, 2023
A really interesting read about how one of the most known turn-based strategy series was born, with a lot of behind-the-scenes info, investigation done and interviews with several key figures so their own perspective is taken into account. However some of the chapter structure and repetition of facts across the book seemed weird and took me out of the mood for some time, so I'm docking some points for that. All in all, a really good book, that added to the info I've learned in some Youtube documentaries that, in my opinion, tackled the issue a bit better.
3,5/5 stars.
3,5/5 stars.
January 10, 2022
A truly satisfying read. A huge amount of wonderful insights and details to the process and the people themselves. This was a great work that paid excellent homage to the classic and to what actually went into its creation.
July 28, 2023
I really liked it: it really gives you a window to the development process video games had in the 90s, even (and specially) when problems arised. There are some parts with interviews where people dont even agree (prettty cool)
February 16, 2022
Very enjoyable. Some minor mistakes, but they may have been fixed since I read an earlier draft.
December 19, 2022
A decent history of how the game was created. I really liked it, but it did seem like once the game was released, the rest was a rush to the ending of the book. Other than that, good book.
July 11, 2024
A fun, breezy history of an absolute classic. I'm glad that writers like Craddock are capturing some of video gaming's history, especially for seminal titles like X-COM.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews