(To this day, Gollop is not sure how they did it.) The aliens progress according to their own agenda, constantly threatening funding, introducing new types of missions and ultimately building bases. The original X-COM had a (barely) two-year development time, an AI programmed with a few Kb, and was designed to run on an 80386 PC. The box art for the Firaxis remake, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, was designed in such a way to pay homage to the series' roots. X-COM was going to be Laser Squad 2 until Microprose suggested that an alien invasion scenario would be more exciting.
It all started with Laser Squad, the first turn-based tactics game by Julian Gollop.
