Julian Gollop

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Codo Technologies)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main otherScript error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image

Julian Gollop is a British video game designer and producer specialising in strategy games,[1] who has founded and led Mythos Games, Codo Technologies and Snapshot Games. He is known best as the "man who gave birth to the X-COM franchise."[2]

Early life

Julian Gollop was born in 1965.[3] He came of age in Harlow, England.[4] When he was a child, his father introduced him to many different types of games, including chess, card games, and board games.[4][5] His family played games regularly, choosing to play games instead of going to see films.[4] When he was about 14 years old, Gollop started playing more complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, SPI board games, and Avalon Hill board games.[4][5] After home computers became a reality while he was in secondary school, Gollop's fascination for complex strategy games helped him recognise how computers could allow him to make and play games he enjoyed.[4][5]

Game development

Early career (1982 to 1988)

In 1982, while he was still in secondary school, Gollop started designing and programming computer games.[6][5][7] For £25, Gollop bought his first computer, a ZX81, from a school friend to learn programming.[5] Even though the ZX81 only had one kilobyte of memory and no real graphics processing ability, he was "amazed" at its capabilities.[5] His first published games were Islandia and Time Lords, which he made for the BBC Micro in 1983 with programmer Andy Greene, a school friend.[7][8][9] Gollop subsequently upgraded to a ZX Spectrum and began creating video games like Nebula in BASIC.[5] He recognised that his future involved computers.[5]

When Gollop went on to the London School of Economics to study sociology, he spent more time creating video games such as Chaos: The Battle of Wizards and Rebelstar than he spent studying.[6][5] He created the first Rebelstar by himself as a two-player game and brought it to a publisher that had an office near his college.[5] They wanted it to be a single-player game, something he had not made before,[5] so Gollop created functional path-finding algorithms from scratch, the game got published, and it ended up doing well.[5]

Mythos Games (1988 to 2001)

In 1988, he was joined by his brother, Nick Gollop, in founding Target Games, a video game development company that subsequently changed to Mythos Games.[5][10] Under the Mythos name, the Gollop brothers designed and developed computer games such as Laser Squad, UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM: Apocalypse.[1][10][11] Up to this time, Gollop had only made computer games for 8-bit and 16-bit home computers commonly found in Europe.[5] It was with UFO: Enemy Unknown (released in North America under the name X-Com: UFO Defense) that he first beginning making video games directly for the MS-DOS and later Microsoft Windows operating system personal computers that at the time would be sold primarily in the United States.[5] Despite the success of these and other games, Mythos Games was forced to close in 2001 after an essential publisher was acquired by a company that withdrew commitments for The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge, which Mythos Games was in the process of developing.[5][12][13]

Codo Technologies (2001 to 2006)

After closing Mythos Games, Gollops founded Codo Technologies.[13] They were disheartened by how mainstream publishers treated them at Mythos Games, so they tried a different business model.[13] The inaugural game of Codo Technologies in 2002 was Laser Squad Nemesis, a turn-based tactics game with asynchronous, multiplayer play-by-email features which required a monthly subscription.[13] The Gollop brothers developed only one other game, Rebelstar: Tactical Command, before he moved to Bulgaria with his wife in 2006.[14][15]

Ubisoft Sofia (2006 to 2012)

After moving to Bulgaria, Gollop began working for Ubisoft in Sofia as a game designer.[5] He was promoted quickly to producer, eventually leading the development of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars for the Nintendo 3DS.[5][16] He then became the co-creative director of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation for the PlayStation Vita.[16] Gollop left Ubisoft in 2012 with ideas to remake games from earlier in his career.[14][15][16][17]

Snapshot Games (since 2013)

As of 2017, Gollop works in Sofia as the CEO and chief designer for Snapshot Games, an independent video game developer he co-founded in 2013 with David Kaye.[2][18][19][20] Chaos Reborn, the studio's first game, was released by Snapshot Games in 2015.[21] He then led his company's development of Phoenix Point, which was released in December 2019.[2][22]

Accolades

IGN included him among the top hundred computer game creators of all time.[1] In the X-COM reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis Games gives homage to Gollop in the form of a "Gollop Chamber" facility in the game.[23] Jake Solomon, creative lead for this XCOM and its sequel, XCOM 2, credits Gollop for much of his success.[24]

Games

Title Year Developer Publisher
Time Lords Template:Dts Julian Gollop Red Shift
Islandia Template:Dts Julian Gollop Red Shift
Battlecars Template:Dts SLUG
Julian Gollop		 Games Workshop
Nebula Template:Dts Julian Gollop Red Shift
Rebelstar Raiders Template:Dts Julian Gollop Red Shift
Chaos: The Battle of Wizards Template:Dts Julian Gollop Games Workshop
Rebelstar Template:Dts Julian Gollop Firebird
Rebelstar II Template:Dts Julian Gollop Silverbird Software
Laser Squad Template:Dts Mythos Games Blade Software
MicroLeague
Lords of Chaos Template:Dts Mythos Games Blade Software
UFO: Enemy Unknown Template:Dts Mythos Games MicroProse
Spectrum HoloByte (Japan)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
X-COM: Apocalypse Template:Dts Mythos Games MicroProse
Magic and Mayhem Template:Dts Mythos Games Template:Vgrelease (Windows)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Vgrelease
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge Cancelled Mythos Games —
Laser Squad Nemesis Template:Dts Codo Technologies Template:VgreleaseTemplate:Vgrelease
Rebelstar: Tactical Command Template:Dts Codo Technologies Namco
Rebelstar 2: The Meklon Conspiracy Cancelled Codo Technologies —
Chessmaster Live Template:Dts Ubisoft Sofia Ubisoft
Feral Interactive (Mac OS X)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars Template:Dts Ubisoft Sofia Ubisoft
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation Template:Dts Ubisoft Sofia Ubisoft (PlayStation Vita)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Chaos Reborn 2015 Snapshot Games Snapshot Games
Phoenix Point 2019 Snapshot Games Snapshot Games

References

Template:Reflist

External links

Template:X-COM

  1. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ a b Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :1
  7. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
Retrieved from "http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?title=Julian_Gollop&oldid=1260089#Codo_Technologies_(2001_to_2006)"