Introduction

Video Game Designers aren't quite popstars. Nevertheless some of them are very famous and their presence in game conventions drag some crowds to see the one that design a favorite or popular game (Sid Meyer, Peter Molynaux, Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima are examples that pop at my mind now). Most of conventional popstar artists have much of their private life exposed and have all the airplay time to say the rubbish they want from their empty minds. Yet to know some brilliant and interesting minds of game designers we must wait long time (years most cases) for interviews granted by magazines and game websites promoting new releases. That interviews are the only window where we can know the facts, curiosities and personal thoughts that defined their gameplay vision in their work.

Unluckily for us, Julian Gollop number of interviews are really scarce spite of the great reputation he made in game design industry. I will do my best to put here the most I can about his life, his thoughts and tastes. Most of core information was taken from official Laser Squad Nemesis website and improved with some tidbits from several sources.

Julian Gollop

Julian Gollop is a british that lives nowadays in Sofia, Bulgaria, homeland of Reni, an artist that became his wife in 2003 and "abducted" him from Harlow, Essex, where he lived before.

As educational matters, he attended the London School of Economics where studied sociology and economics.

Julian likes to creatively give a small contribute in things like programming, art, music and cooking.

As modern heroes of computer age he points among others Richard Stallman (GNU founder, free-speech activist), Tim Berners Lee (conceiver of World Wide Web), Doug Engelbart (inventor of the computer mouse, pioneer in hypertext and Arpanet development) and Linus Torvalds (father of Linux Operating system).

As hobby and therapy he likes to read, swim and do mountain walking.

Julian likes strategy board games, classic wargames, Science Fiction and Fantasy themes like Mythology, witchcraft, UFO's and alien abduction.

Nick Gollop

Nick Gollop is Julian brother and his partner in game industry from very long time ago (1988) but not from when Julian started (1983), so we can guess is probably younger than Julian. Nick begin to help his brother programming Laser Squad Commodore 64 version at Target Games in 1988 just after he studied economics at Liverpool University. In 1989 he became shareholder and director along with Julian and Peter Gollop at Mythos Games company. He did the Commodore 64 coding of Lord of Chaos in 1990. Now in the 16/32 bit era, Nick is an Senior Programmer leaving his Julian with more time to focus more in the essence of designing games. He is specialist in Extreme Programming (XP) techniques.

Music takes an important part in Nick's life. Mainstream music isn't his kind, he prefers more obscure bands and he sees a lot of live gigs in London. Nick enjoys the quietness of literature and he is quite an avid reader but in contrast he loves too the emotions of soccer. This last passion makes him want to do a football game someday.

Nick married in 2002 with Rosinha, a brazilian, (so I wonder If I could now write him a mail in portuguese?). They live in North Yorkshire with their two daughters, Amy and Sophia.

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History

Here is a brief chronological resume of Julian work. Re-releases and compilations are not listed here in this softography lists. More detailed info of versions not made by Julian Gollop and his teams can be found in the specific game pages. Nick Gollop roles (if any) are also listed here after Julian role.

RedShift

Julian's debut was in RedShift Ltd, a friends software house where he worked till 1984 and was an innovative company focused in strategic games. When still at school his work began with the designing of two strategic games for the BBC Micro but not coding them. The games were Time Lords (1983) based on a paper and dice game and Islandia (1984), a kind of Risk conquest game. He started learning code with his Spectrum ZX81 but only with a new Zx Spectrum 48K he made totally by himself a published game. Nebula (1984) was the name of it and it's a peculiar game of galactic conquest. After that did Rebelstar Raiders (1984), the "mother" of all X-Com styled games.

The software house closed after the main investor quit supporting the team. The RedShift team that had a close relation with Games Workshop (it launched before a GW computer version of acclaimed Apocalypse) eventually moved to Games Workshop.

Softography in Red Shift

Time Lords - 1983 - BBC Micro - Game Designer

Islandia - 1984 - BBC Micro - Game Designer

Nebula - 1984 - ZX Spectrum 48K - Game Designer - Programmer

Rebelstar Raiders - 1984 - ZX Spectrum 48K - Game Designer - Programmer

Games Workshop

Games Workshop Group PLC is the mythic game board company of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson fame. The former RedShift team was the foundation team for Games Workshop new line of videogames. Julian only did here his popular masterpiece Chaos (1985) based in an company board/card game.

Softography in Games Workshop

Chaos - 1985 - ZX Spectrum - Game Designer - Programmer

Firebird Software/Silverbird Software (Mirrorsoft)

For Firebird Software Ltd he upgraded Rebelstar Raiders with better look and engine. Made Rebelstar (1986) and after that Rebelstar 2 (1988), the same game with a new scenario and with reshaped graphics help of Ian Terry (that later worked again in Target Games and Mythos Games).

Softography in Software/Silverbird

Rebelstar - 1986 - ZX Spectrum - Game Designer - Programmer (on Firebird Software budget label)

Rebelstar 2 - 1988 - ZX Spectrum - Game Designer - Programmer (on Silverbird Software budget label)

Target Games

Julian founded this company in Essex, Harlow. Needing more work staff, his brother Nick started helping in Laser Squad, an improved Rebelstar. The game with versions for multiple platforms was a success and included Atari ST / Commodore Amiga / IBM PC versions conversions done by extinct Krisalis and released under Blade Software label, a company from Cambridgeshire partly owned by Teque. Also there was an almost Unknownn MSX version making it the most (officially) converted Gollop's game.

Softography in Games Target Games

Laser Squad - 1988 - ZX Spectrum - Amstrad CPC - Game designer - Programmer. Nick Gollop programmed Commodore 64 version.

Mythos Games

Target Games was then renamed Mythos Games Ltd but remaining in the same Essex facilities. Lords of Chaos, an upgraded Chaos with RPG features was released in 1999 and it was Julian's last game to know 8bit versions. Like Laser Squad was released in several platforms. Next years were spent in designing a kind of Laser Squad 2 Amiga/ST prototype and showing it to several software houses. It was finally picked by MicroProse, further developed, originating the well-knowed success Ufo: Enemy Unknownn (marketed as X-COM: UFO Defense in U.S.A.). Pleased MicroProse wanted now a more ambitious game so Mythos started X-Com: Apocalypse development. Meanwhile MicroProse allocated an in-house team to develop a second Ufo/X-Com game based in licensed Ufo original code. So X-Com - Terror from the Deep (isn't quite a Julian Gollop game but a kind of half-game.

After almost 4 years of coding problems due the game complexity and very hard development X-Com - Apocalypse was finally released. Now with a real-time game option and an improved Artificial Intelligence system. The game had good selling but spite that was the end of Mythos Games fingerprint in X-Com series. In that days Mythos already had sold X-Com trademark rights to MicroProse that seemed more interested in rentabilize X-Com name in several other gameplay genres. Microprose in a decline phase tried franchising X-Com with an uninspired spaceship simulator called X-Com Interceptor. Hasbro Interactive then acquired a troubled MicroProse, launched e-Mail-X-Com and after killed the X-Com series despite the couple of former MicroProse's X-Com projects already on the forge (X-Com Genesis and X-Com Alliance).

Mythos turned then to VIE - Virgin Interactive to release the 3rd incarnation of Chaos, Magic & Mayhem that mixed the spell battles of Chaos with the RPG map elements of Lord of Chaos and adding a new isometric view plus mouse point and click real-time action. Virgin later in 2001 assigned Climax Ltd. to remake it with real 3D engine and maintaining most of original gameplay concept. In U.S. market was launched by Betheseda.

Dark times covered next Mythos Games project. Dreamland Chronicles - Freedom Ridge was a very ambitious Ufo/X-Com kind of a game now with advanced 3D environment physics. It was so complex and time demanding that Mythos was dependent of financing of the publishers for the development of the announced Sony PS2 and PC versions. So everything gone wrong after some game development delay. The game was cancelled by Mythos (or by some other part). The reason? I wish really know that because there is a lot of contradictory versions and even some rumors. With Mythos out of project Virgin Interactive give the halted project to the czech Altar Interactive. It was renamed to UFO: Freedom Ridge and finally UFO: Aftermath and then published by Cenega and not as originally planned by Virgin or Betheseda. Spite of not being quite a Julian Gollop game I created a small section about the project in game section. Being the only project for several years in Mythos hands and with no more funds to mantain the team there is no need to say that the company collapsed.

Softography in Games Mythos Games

Lords of Chaos - 1990 - Game Design - ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC coding by Julian Gollop. Commodore Amiga and Atari ST coding by Julian and Nick Gollop ( also with Martin Beadle). Commodore 64 coding by Nick Gollop.

UFO: Enemy Unknownn (X-COM: UFO Defense in US) - 1994 - PC - Commodore Amiga CD32 - Sony Playstation - Game design and programming by Julian and Nick Gollop. Julian also co-created graphic artwork.

X-COM: Terror from the Deep - 1995 - Original/licensed UFO game engine. MicroProse adapted and released PC, Commodore Amiga and Sony Playstation versions.

X-COM: Apocalypse - 1997 - PC - Game Designer - Co-programmer. Nick Gollop was Lead Programmer

Magic And Mayhem (Duel: The Mage Wars in US)- 1998 - PC - Game Designer. Nick Gollop was Senior Programmer

Codo Technologies

With CoDo Technologies LTD (also knew sometimes as Codotech) Julian and Nick went to basics again. They were now a smaller team again and needed to do a project that could quickly do some return. The solution was to pick again a solid classic project and improving it with new features. Laser Squad Nemesis born then as turn based pure tactical combat game for PC only. It's played by mail and needs a server when played in multiplayer mode. Also after a bad move towards 3D in last Freedom Ridge they adopted again the simplicity of isometric view. The game was well received and there is an active community playing it.

CoDo went even more to basic in Rebelstar: Tactical Command done exclusively for the more limited technically Nintendo Gameboy Advance. It's was the team first time of doing something for an handheld console game and with the honour of the work be assigned by the famous Namco. Some Laser Squad Nemesis gameplay is here in small version and was packed with a touch of manga artwork.

For now there isn't any confirmed news for future projects of the small software house. It's is rumored that a new version of LSN is being made. The official websites of Codo Technology, codotech.com and codogames.com were somehow hijacked or expired, so for now Laser Squad Nemesis website is the only web presence of the company.

And this is their brief story. For now I hope.

Softography in Codo Technologies

Laser Squad Nemesis - 2002 - IBM PC - Game designer. Nick Gollop co-programmed.

Rebelstar: Tactical Command - 2005 - Gameboy Advance - Game designer. Nick Gollop role yet to be determined.

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Interviews

Note » Printed and Web interviews are subject to copyright of the publishers. When possible I leave the direct link for web interviews if still online. Concerning printed interviews I will try one by one get permission to display them here.

Press

Retro Gamer #13 (Vol.2 - Nº1 - FEB 2005???) - Imagine Publishing, UK - A more or less recent interview making an interesting journey to Julian Gollop career.

Web

4cr - 4 Color Rebellion - 5 Dez 2005 - A Rebelstar - Tactical Command related interview.

IGN.com by Craig Harris - 17 June 2005 - A Rebelstar - Tactical Command related interview.

Games Domain (offline) by Tim Chown - March 1999 - A Magic and Mayhem interview.

HomeLAN Fed (offline) by John [JCal] Callaham - 27 January 2002 - A Laser Squad Nemesis interview (when still in beta phase).

Gallery

Note » Some photos bellow are thumbnailed, reduced or cropped. Click them for original size.

A photo of Julian Gollop found at Moby Games website that was added there by Joseph Numpty.	First Annual AI Programmer's Dinner at the CGDC (May 8th, 1998). Julian the most left with glasses. Nick is the last one seated on right row.

Former Mythos Games promo picture for Magic & Mayhem of Julian Gollop.	Former Mythos Games promo picture for Magic & Mayhem of Nick Gollop.

Former Mythos Games team promo picture for Magic & Mayhem. Julian and Nick are the only nobles with with hats and staves (Nick at left, Julian at right).	Former Mythos Games team photo in a circuit racing leisure day. Julian, top-left. Nick at top-right without racing suit.

Nick (center) and Julian Gollop (right) with a possible other team member of CoDo at their left.

Unknownn source photo

Former RedShift team. Which one of the young lads is Julian here? Notice also the name Woof, several times mentioned in Gollop games.

Micro Adventurer nº9 - July 1984

Trivia

» Julian have a large number of fantasy games and board games from Avalon Hill, SPI, TSR and from other companies. He played a bit of D&D, some Dragonquest and Traveller before making Chaos. He reckon that don't play them so often than before (in Retro Gamer #13).

» Questioned about the most admired "binary maestro" and to point three classics (in Crash #59) he answered:

Most admired programmer(s): R T Smith (Vulcan, Arnhem) - 'all his games are very well designed and also well programmed.'

Lords of Midnight - 'it's very atmospheric and totally original.'

Vulcan - 'it's just a great strategy game.'

The Rats - 'it has a tremendous amount of atmosphere.'

» Julian points Disgaea for PS2 ("a little bit like a fantasy x-com on the acid") and Advance Wars and Fire Emblem for Gameboy Advance as gems in other non-PC platforms (in Retro Gamer #13)

» The old Day the Earth Stood Still is one of favorite Julian's movies with aliens (in 4 Color Rebellion)

» Concerning future projects Julian said that after finishing Rebelstar - Tactical Commando next project was buying a house. (in 4 Color Rebellion). Yet in IGN.com said that would make a long vacation. He said also that he would like return again to do a fantasy game (in Retro Gamer #13)

» Julian always wanted to do a huge strategic simulation of World War 2 in X-Com way with a geoscape strategic view and a tactical battle generator. He wants to do also someday an old western R.P.G. (in Games Domain website)

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Quick-Jump

Introduction

Julian Gollop

Nick Gollop

History

Interviews

Gallery

Trivia

Related Links

Wikipedia - Julian Gollop

MobyGames - Julian Gollop

Wikipedia - Codo Technologies

Laser Squad Nemesis - Codo Technologies Site