Laser Squad Nemesis

Laser Squad Nemesis is a 2002 turn-based tactics game designed by Julian Gollop and made by Codo Technologies, the small company he formed with his brother Nick. It is a game for two players. Each picks a side, Spacers, Machina robots, Grey aliens or Beasts, and spends a budget on a squad.

Both players plan their moves at the same time, without seeing the other's orders, and submit them. When the server has both sets, it plays them out simultaneously and sends each player a replay of what happened. Games were played by email or through a web interface, so a match could run over days, one turn at a time.

Simultaneous turns change the whole feel of a tactics game. You are no longer reacting to what the enemy has done, but guessing what they are about to do, and the replay of a turn where both sides walk into each other is a pleasure of its own. It was a direct ancestor of later games built on the same idea, such as Frozen Synapse.

It depended on a community of players and a running server, which makes it hard to play now. Its interest today is mostly in the design idea it proved.

Nemesis keeps X-COM's ground rules, line of sight, cover and squads bought from a budget, and drops the campaign and the computer opponent entirely. The bigger change is the clock: both sides move at once. It sits between X-COM's turns and the real-time games, which is part of why its idea keeps coming back.