Julian Gollop

Childhood

Julian Gollop was born in 1965.^[4] He came of age in Harlow, England.^[5] When he was a child, his father introduced him to many different types of games, including chess, card games, and board games.^[5][6] His family played games regularly, choosing to play games instead of going to see movies.^[5] When he was about 14 years old, Gollop started playing more complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, SPI board games, and Avalon Hill board games.^[5][6] After home computers became a reality while he was in secondary school, Gollop's fascination for complex strategy games helped him recognize how computers could allow him to make and play games he enjoyed.^[5][6]

Early career (1982 to 1988)

In 1982, while he was still in secondary school, Julian Gollop started designing and programming video games.^[1][6][7] For £25, Gollop bought his first computer, a ZX81, from a school friend to learn programming.^[6] Even though the ZX81 only had one kilobyte of memory and no real graphics processing ability, he was "amazed" at its capabilities.^[6] 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.^[6] He recognized that his future involved computers.^[6]

When Julian 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.^[1][6] 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.^[6] They wanted it to be a single-player game, something he had not made before,^[6] so Gollop created functional path-finding algorithms from scratch, the game got published, and it ended up doing well.^[6]

Mythos Games (1988 to 2001)

In 1988, Julian Gollop was joined by his brother, Nick Gollop, in founding Target Games, a video game development company that subsequently changed to Mythos Games.^[6][10] Under the Mythos name, Gollop and his brother designed and developed video games such as Laser Squad, UFO: Enemy Unknown and X-COM: Apocalypse.^[2][10][11] Up to this time, Gollop had only made video games for home computers commonly found in Europe.^[6] It was with UFO: Enemy Unknown that Gollop first beginning making video games directly for personal computer sold primarily in the United States.^[6] 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.^{[6][12][13][12]}

Codo Technologies (2001 to 2006)

After closing Mythos Games, Julian Gollop and his brother founded Codo Technologies.^[12] They were disheartened by how mainstream publishers treated them at Mythos Games, so they tried a different business model.^[12] 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.^[12] The Gollop brothers developed only one other game, Rebelstar: Tactical Command, before Julian moved to Bulgaria with his wife in 2006.^[14][15]

Ubisoft Sofia (2006 to 2012)

After moving to Bulgaria, Julian Gollop began working for Ubisoft in Sofia as a game designer.^[6] He was promoted quickly to producer, eventually leading the development of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars for the Nintendo 3DS.^[6][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, Julian 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.^{[3][18][19][20]} His most recent game, Chaos Reborn, was released by Snapshot Games in 2015.^[21] He currently leads his company's development of Phoenix Point, which is expected to be released in 2018.^[3]

Interviews

• The Story of X-Com: From the school playground to Laser Squad Nemesis in the words of Julian Gollop at Eurogamer (2010)
• Interview With XCOM Creator Julian Gollop at NowGamer (2011)
• Julian Gollop interview: on X-Coms old and new, the Ghost Recon strategy game that never was, AI, auteurs and "Fork My Fruit" at PC Gamer (2013)
• XCOM Commanders: Jake Solomon and Julian Gollop interviewed at Firaxis Games (2013)
• X-COM & Tactical Games. With Julian Gollop at the Game Design Round Table (2013)
• Julian Gollop at Retro Gamer (2014)
• Ninterview: Legendary Designer Julian Gollop On Ghost Recon, Fire Emblem And Chaos Reborn at Nintendo Life (2014)
• 30 years of creating strategy games with X-COM's Julian Gollop at Gamasutra (2014)
• Julian Gollop Discusses Chaos Reborn at Cliqist Indie Gaming (2014)
• 'Chaos Reborn' Interview - X-Com Creator Julian Gollop's Turn-Based Strategy Revival at Forbes (2014)
• What XCOM creator Julian Gollop did next at Eurogamer (2014)
• Interview: Julian Gollop on New Game Phoenix Point at PCPowerPlay (2016)
• There is No Plan B at gameindustry.biz (2017)
• Phoenix Point's Fig Campaign Promises New Take on Class X-COM Formula at Polygon (2017)
• RPG Codex Interview: Julian Gollop on Phoenix Point at RPG Codex (2017)