Phoenix Point Funded, Stretch Goals Announced

Phoenix Point, Julian Gollop’s X-COM style game, currently on Fig, has reached its first major milestone, the initial goal of $500,000, in less than a week. As such, the latest update unveiled a couple of stretch goals. Have a look:

$650,000 – Drivable Vehicles in Tactical Battles

Deploy vehicles to tactical battles for carrying troops and providing heavy weapons support. They can also be used for retrieving equipment and materials in raid missions, and for safe evacuation of soldiers or civilians in danger. There will be multiple construction options and a variety of weapons turrets available.

$850,000 – Floating Phoenix Base

A floating fortress which can travel by sea and conduct air operations inland from coastal areas. Such bases will be exposed to danger from seaborn mutants generating some tense defensive missions, but the additional strategic flexibility of such a base will greatly help in mid to late game. It will also allow the player to discover some of the most well hidden secrets of the alien agenda, deep inside the mist.

Also, the previous update brought us a few more pieces of concept art, and a new short story, The Tomb of the Phoenix. Here’s an excerpt:

III

As the location of the island as described in the press was vague at best, we were forced to search according to an ingenious pattern devised by Shklovski, the details of which I cannot claim to understand. In any case, we spent days doing this, during which time tempers began to fray, culminating in a fistfight between Emerson and one of the sailors. The sailor had taken Emerson for a weakling due to the man’s profession and tendency to speak too much, but that was a foolish assumption; Emerson had grown up in poverty in West Virginia, the son of a coal-miner, and for all his academic knowledge and refined language, he fought like a professional pugilist. Suffice it to say, it did not end well for the sailor, which greatly endeared Emerson to the rest of the crew, who disliked the sailor for his thuggishness and subservience to Captain Tremaine. I must admit I felt some jealousy, then, for Emerson expressed a kind of truly American dynamism that my more reticent nature denied me, though the Romantic in me longed for it.

I note all these details so as to accurately describe the mental state we found ourselves in when we came upon the island. It is true that we were not in the best of spirits; but we were not, as I have heard claimed, lost, hungry, or on the verge of madness. If anything, from the moment we sighted the island, everyone’s spirits lifted immensely and a surge of enthusiasm swept the boat.

It was Chambers who spied it first, which was unsurprising, as he was the most convinced of its existence, and spent the most time on deck or staring out through the portholes. He came running down to the mess, where the rest of us were assembling for breakfast, shouting incoherently. When we realized what he was trying to say, we followed him to the port deck. At first we thought he had been wrong, and all we were seeing was a particularly large iceberg, but then Chambers pointed out what appeared to be stone cliffs, and what he thought might be structures. Shklovski agreed, which swayed the rest of us. Chambers ordered Tremaine to head straight for the island.

As we drew closer, excitement grew. It was becoming apparent that Chambers was right. The island did not exist on any of our maps, and it certainly wasn’t an iceberg. Whether the straight lines we saw atop the cliffs were artificial or natural was another issue, but one that could be cleared up soon enough. It would take us some time to reach the island and to find a good place to drop anchor, but we were well-rested and the sun was always in the sky, so we began to prepare for our first landing.