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I’m taking a little bit of a break from Archaos at the moment as more immediate priorities have arisen – notably my financial status! As you probably know, I quit my full time job in September of last year to work on Archaos, and indeed I’ve made a lot of progress; as much if not more in my abilities as a programmer as on the game itself.

As it stands, I need to do a partial rewrite on the client, as some aspects of it (mainly legacy stuff from last year) have become unmaintainable. Sounds drastic but I assure you this is only a minor setback; lots of Archaos is done and working to my satisfaction (the server for example is in a pretty good state at the moment, and the implemented features are working very efficiently) however the rigours of dealing with stateful asynchronous stuff all over the place (via the network, player inputs, waiting for animations and so on) combined with the lack of any kind of pattern have led to a game which as it stands is becoming near impossible to debug. Action must be taken, and that will begin with the application of a proper MVC pattern to the client game code.

In order to continue to be able to work on Archaos, I’ve taken on some web jobs (which bizarrely appeared totally out of nowhere from friends right as my savings were about to dry up) but this is a temporary thing and as soon as they’re done, I’ll be back onto Archaos and aiming for a beta release.

I can only apologise for the seemingly endless false starts and broken deadlines for those of you who’re following this project – it’s embarrassing to keep having to explain myself. My focus is however still solidly on getting Archaos finished and released, and then getting to the bit I’ve been really looking forward to; extending the game through new modes, features, spells and units!

Stay tuned!

Apologies for no updates in a month – I’ve been working on other small prototype projects, sharpening my skills and learning new languages (such as C# in Unity 3D – which I cannot recommend enough!) as well as just recently attending a rather prolonged hospital stay. Needless to say I’m back on with things now so expect to see some more updates and progress in the coming days and weeks!

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. Immediately the laws of physics ensured that everything would work the way it does. Without physics, the universe wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t be able to ask the question. From the physics that cause the stars to shine and eventually die came chemistry. Every element of every molecule in every compound in the universe came from a dying star. The abundance of elements and the laws of chemistry resulted in biology – life. For billions of years physics, chemistry and biology interacted, resulting in all of the people you have known, all the pets you’ve owned, all of the birds you’ve heard sing, and all of the insects you’ve unwittingly stood on.

You’re here because physics, chemistry and biology have been at work shaping energy and matter for 13.75 billion years, and will continue to do so long after you are gone. Your purpose is to enjoy your short waking moment in time, to learn and to explore, and to recognise that you are part of a magnificently ancient, complex and purposeless universe that has produced you with your own complexity and consciousness, and given you the ability to comprehend your place in it and choose your own purpose.

Earlier on I got wind of news that very nearly made my heart stop.

OK it's official! I am working on a sequel/remake to my classic ZX Spectrum game 'Chaos' – for iOS, PC, Mac – maybe more.

— Julian Gollop (@julian_gollop) November 2, 2012

Yes, Julian Gollop – creator of the original Chaos, of the original X-Com, and of many other seminal classics, has begun work on his own remake of Chaos using Unity 3D to initially target PC, Mac and iOS. He also stated:

@MullinsDaRapper I want to keep combat/movement very close to the original, with some tweeks.

— Julian Gollop (@julian_gollop) November 2, 2012

…which bodes well for it sticking to the original winning formula.

Development on the game has only just begun, and Julian is currently looking for good artists. He has estimated that the game will take around a year to finish, so we’ll all have to be patient.

I guess the recent massive success of XCOM: Enemy Unknown has brought Gollop back to the forefront and given him the motivation needed to revisit what has to be in my (and many other people’s) opinion one of the greatest games of all time.

Julian, if you read this, I wish you all the very best with your remake. Chaos has been crying out to be remade for a modern market, and a market that’s now clearly in the right place to readily accept a multi-platform turn-based strategy title such as this.

What however does this mean for Archaos? Surely with this title coming out, it makes Archaos obsolete and possibly in danger of legal action as it will directly compete with Julian’s version on the same platforms?

@lewster32 I have no problem with it, don't worry.

— Julian Gollop (@julian_gollop) November 2, 2012

Sometimes it really is worth meeting your heroes.