As we’ve expected, remaking the graphics takes quite a lot of work and time. It seems we wont be able to provide the game with remade graphics anytime soon. We have therefore made adjustments to our game releasing plans.

Originally, we wanted to release a limited demo, and hopefuly, using it to promote the project, gather more people willing to help us redo graphics, sound and music.

Now, thanks to help from Michal, we’re making an automated extractor program, which will use the first game’s data files and place them in proper format and place in the remake. The bad news is that you will need to have the first game in order to play the remake. The good news is it will be sooner.

Also, I wanned to answer a common question that i see is being asked a lot:

Why making Ufo: TTS if the original game is still playable (and even still sold)? If its a fateful remake what sense is to play Ufo: TTS over Ufo 1?

Answer:

It is a close remake, not fateful. It however uses fateful graphics and as fateful as we could get menu layouts.
Some of the below features can be applied to ufo 1 via mods, however the most important ones are unique.

  • Ufo: TTS features a number of user interface improvements (keyboard shortcuts, more info on screen…).
  • Higher screen resolution with higher unit’s resolution, and wide screen support in tactical battle, allowing you to see more.
  • Multiplayer
  • Playable as both sides (single and multiplayer)
  • Ufo player is not random anymore. In the original game the only profit you got from shooting down alien battleship was the profit you gain yourself. You could shoot down 1000s of them and aliens would not feel it. In Ufo: TTS Aliens have their own economic system. This gives more satisfaction and more meaning to shooting down alien crafts as it harms their economy.
  • Tweaks to tactical combat which can further be divided into:
    • Different handling of weapon’s aim and damage, hopefully adding more decision making to the game rather than ‘shot the first alien you see with whatever you have in your hand’.
    • With reworked aim, introduction of sniper rifle (the only weapon added to the game, as i’m opposed to adding much, at least at this point in production), which actually works like a sniper rifle and its aim is calculated in a different way than normal weapon’s.
    • With changed aim and damage system, weapons are more diverse, its not only the best damage / accuracy vs time units, but heavy weapons and rifles work in a different way. Generally, weapons have been slightly rebalanced, to make the arming phase more interesting, not only pack your soldiers with heavy plasmas (occasionally laser rifles) and some blasters.
    • Reintroduction of ‘new’ special abilities. Why ‘reintroduction’? Because those abilities were in the original game, but only mentioned in the Ufopedia. Like, snakemen laying eggs, celatid’s abbility to detect brain waves (acting like a radar). Everything was mentioned in the first game, but wasn’t present on the battlefield, which was a let down for everyone who liked to read those autopsy and live specimen examinations.
    • Addition of a new soldier’s stat – perception. Again, i’m opposed to adding much at this stage, as it can break the fun original game had. But perception simply blended extremely well into the game, allowing soldiers to act better as scouts.
    • Some other, minor improvements, like right clicking to open the door (a’la terror from the deep), and a couple of new inventions that are still being tested.
  • Reworked air combat. Original game’s air combat was very flawed in design. If you had range advantage over the alien ship, you could shot it down without any retaliation fire.
  • Reworked X-com plane’s stats so that useless firestorm and lightning can find their place in the game again. (This is actually a bigger change than simply buffing up their stats :) )
  • Some of the technologies have been reworked in various ways.