Who the heck is Xed I hear you cry? If you do know, then let me shake you warmly by the hand and say thank you for buying Terracon! Confused as to how he makes it into this advent calendar then? Well, I’m writing it, and since I was one of the programmers on it I thought I might as well indulge myself

Anyway, Xed was a grey alien working as a Terraformer for the Terracon, a giant brain in a jar. Unfortunately, the Terracon turned evil, and after wiping out the rest of Xed’s race, started blasting the newly terraformed planets to pieces. Xed’s mission is to try and stop the Terracon once and for all. He’s not totally alone in the universe however, as he is kept company by the hologrammatic form of the Doc, his old scientist pal, who offers help and advice throughout the game.


The game was a free roaming third person adventure title. Xed was equipped with a gun that fired Genergy, a form of energy that was used in terraforming. As well as being able to destroy enemies with the gun, Xed could also fire it at objects to make them overheat and blow up. It’s third use was actually in creation. The levels contained holographic meshes in various places, and Xed could make these solid so he could interact with them by pumping Genergy into them with the gun. Genergy came in three different colours, and this allowed a puzzle solving element to come into the game as well, as you had to make sure you had the right colour of Genergy in order to make the meshes solid.

The game was developed by PictureHouse and released in 2000 on PS1, and despite getting some excellent review scores failed to sell. It was also well received at E3, but was never released outside of Europe. Being my first published title I’m obviously very proud of it, it’s just a shame that it was never really marketed. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Well, not much anyway Check out the game’s website if you’re curious.

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