Stay Awhile and Listen shows that there was a potent mixture of talent, opportunity, and personality that drove the meteoric rise of Blizzard Entertainment from its earliest days. I can't wait for the next installment. -Julian Gollop, creator of X-COM: UFO Defense
Posted by DMPress Mar 26, 2014
March 26, 2014 - Digital Monument Press is excited to announce The X-COM Files: How Alien Invaders, Rebel Squads, and Gooey Blobs Took Strategy Gaming by Storm. Written by David L. Craddock and due for release on Amazon's Kindle platform later this year, The X-COM Files chronicles the making of X-COM: UFO Defense, Laser Squad, Chaos, and other strategy games created by legendary designer Julian Gollop.
Released in March 1994, X-COM: UFO Defense remains one of the highest-rated computer games in history. Popular review outlet IGN.com named it the best PC game of all time in 2000 and 2007, and numerous other outlets including Computer Gaming World and GameSpot.com inducted the game into hall of fames and awarded it high placement on best-game lists. In 2012, publisher 2K Games and developer Firaxis Games released a reimagining entitled XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 platforms to critical acclaim.
Julian Gollop remains an influential designer beyond the scope of X-COM's success. In March 2014, Gollop launched a crowd-funding campaign for Chaos Reborn, a reboot of his RPG/strategy hybrid Chaos, released on the ZX Spectrum home computer in 1985. As in the original, Chaos Reborn sees players don wizard's robes and draw from a deep reservoir of spells to battle over treasure and explore fantastical realms.
"I read David Craddock's book, Stay Awhile and Listen, and I thought it was quite an intricate, deep-dive into the inner workings of Blizzard Entertainment," said Julian Gollop. "I would like to see the [X-COM] book as kind of a historical record of a game that was influential. Hopefully it can provide some inspiration, and also some fascination for how things were done in the early days of the games industry. And in some cases, how badly things were done as well."
The X-COM Files is the next entry in DM Press's catalog of books devoted to the culture, people, and games of the video-game industry. The publisher's debut title, Stay Awhile and Listen, became a bestseller within 24 hours of its release on Amazon's Kindle platform in October 2013.
The X-COM Files is due for release in 2014 on Kindle, with availability on other platforms following thereafter.
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About Digital Monument Press, LLC
Digital Monument Press publishes books that chronicle the making of video games, the developers that make them, and the culture that drives the games industry. Learn more about Digital Monument Press at dm-press.com, and follow Digital Monument Press at