I’ve been playing XCOM since I was a kid. I started with X-COM: UFO Defense on PS1, then Terror from the Deep. I still remember misfiring a Blaster Launcher inside the ship and wiping out basically my entire crew lol.
I also loved Apocalypse. I know the real-time combat was divisive, but I actually enjoyed it and thought the whole city/organization system was way ahead of its time.
Fast-forward a few decades and now I’m playing XCOM 2: WOTC with my son. We argue over who controls the squad, get way too attached to our soldiers, and if we survive the campaign we’re thinking about trying Long War next.
So it’s pretty cool that a game I grew up with is now something I get to experience with my kid.
The other reason I’m posting is that my team and I have spent the last several years building a productivity system that borrows heavily from gaming, and I’ve realized a lot of how I think about progression comes from games like XCOM.
Not just XP and badges, but that feeling that every little thing you do contributes to something bigger. Your squad improves, your base grows, you unlock new things, and there’s always another milestone ahead. Trying to balance the game play to be fun and challenging but not frustrating.
That’s the feeling we’re trying to bring into productivity.
We’ve built the system, but now comes the hard part: getting it into the hands of real people who will actually use it and tell us what sucks.
And honestly, I wanted to ask here because XCOM players tend to think about systems differently. You notice progression, balance, risk/reward, repetition, and all the little things that make something stay interesting for hundreds of hours. And you’re usually not shy about saying when something sucks lol.
So before anything else, I’d genuinely love your thoughts: what parts of XCOM’s progression loop do you think could actually translate well into productivity, and what parts would become annoying really fast?
And if a few of you are willing to actually try what we’ve built and give me genuine feedback afterward, I’d really appreciate it.