Frozen Synapse

[DrazharLn]

It's the best tactical shooter you'll ever buy. Buy it play it. Now.

You want more!? I'll give you more...

Frozen Synapse is a turn based tactical shooter. You control a small team (up to about 5 soldiers) and you play in 5 second turns. Don't worry, you get to spend much longer than 5 seconds planning them.

Each turn, you can give each of your units orders, telling them where and when to move, aim, duck or stand. There are also more subtle controls for toggling your soldiers to ignore or engage targets and for focusing on a single soldier.

I'd write more, but I'm tired. So I'll link to the fine article my beloved RPS wrote on it.

Really good article by Kieron Gillen
For a more mechanical description of the game, see this forum post.

Seriously. Buy it now, play the tutorial then challenge me to a game (my username is DrazharLn).

P.S. Game is in early beta, you're preordering it and getting access to the beta and all consequent releases, much like Mount & Blade's distribution model.

P.P.S. Game is in early beta, adjust your expectations accordingly.

[DrazharLn]

Also, mod? I messed up. Please move this thread to the Indie Games forum and delete this post.

Thanks.

[El_Cid]

ah but you actually have played this it seems - i didn't, or haven't yet, so your viewpoints are far more valid than mine
I'm waiting for the full release(as i burned out on beta-testing long ago) as this does sound like a cool game

maybe this post could be merged with the one in the indie games section?

[Lemmy]

I'm glad you messed up, i rarely check the indie games forum, and this looks like an interesting game.

May sound cheesy, but lately i have been thinking about how i could make something like this. I was thinking about tactical 3d shooter with very simple graphics, MP and SP, a level editor, and very customizable AI.

[DrazharLn]

Yeah me too (though I wouldn't have made it for a couple of years at least). It really is very fun, I've already got four of my friends playing, soon to be six

El Cid, woops I didn't realise you'd already made a post there. It is in a playable state, there are just a few bugs and imbalances left (oh yeah, and a ton of features left to implement).

[DrazharLn]

@ El Cid, you mention it is using temporary graphics, do you have any evidence for that? I was under the impression that the current graphics represent the aesthetic Ian (sole developer, I think) was going for; a minimalist Introversion-a-like style.

[El_Cid]

IIRC when i posted the link to the website they had a bit more info on the game and the 'temporary' graphics were mentioned there or it may have been from an article i had read somewhere else, that got me to go to their website to find out more.

Anyway at some point a few months back somebody talked about it's 'temporary' graphics, which i thought a shame as i like them also in their minimalist-futuristic Introversion way

So i kind of hope they keep them that way and will look to buy it when it comes out for a full release with a single player campaign

[Rubin]

While watching the teaser video, my very first impression was in fact "Introversion" and "Uplink". Judging from the info, it looks like a similarly simple concept--and I really like this kind of innovative gameplay direction!

My next thought was a port or re-development of the 1986 Ariolasoft title "They Stole A Million" (and not some silly adventure remake or whatever). Oh well...

[DrazharLn]

I just had a look at a few minutes of footage of that (never heard of it before). It's nothing like FS. It looks like some kind of adventure/puzzle thing...

Read wiki article. I see the similarities now, looks like a fun game. You might be interested in [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFnc6Fdhs2k"]YouTube- Monaco[/nomedia], actually. It's a co-op real time thieve-em-up (I made that genre name up right now). Same sort of style, less of the strategy though.

I've played this for about 2 hours today As of right now, 4 of my friends have copies of the game and between us we have 2 keys left...

[Rubin]

Uff, I went to the official Frozen Synapse website and I am getting flooded with "pre-order" links. I definitely do not appreciate this kind of "marketing". Yeah, they want us to pre-order, but a pre-order link in every paragraph? As if I did not see the first link and the huge pre-order banners?!? There's something about this that really ticks me off (as a potential customer). Basically, I'm left with a sense of a developer that cares more about profit than making a good game... where's the passion?

DrazharLn, what kind of They Stole A Million footage did you watch? The game has 3 very different "phases". There's no real action in the game, but the planning and execution part of the Frozen Synapse video resembles the planning and execution parts of the old thieve-em-up-no-action game.

[DrazharLn]

The footage I looked at seemed like some bizarre action game, after reading the wiki article, though, I think it was actually the execution stage only.

Re: advertising. They're indie developers, they're probably paying themselves out of their own savings or something right now. They want to get the money in hand as fast as possible to continue development.

If you watch the forums there, you can see that they watch and respond to feature requests and bug reports very quickly.

Personally, I thought that all the preorder notices were done in a funny way, but YMMV.

[BigDork]

If anyone's interested I'd love to do some MP. My Steam is BigDork1001. Shoot me a game!

[Kloreep]

I assume you're Bigdork1001 on FS as well? Challenge sent your way.

Edit: And I'm Kloreep on both Steam and FS, feel free to challenge me on FS as well.

[BigDork]

Well you're kicking my ass in this one Kloreep.

[Kloreep]

I'll take that as a sign that my gunner's crazed "oh @*!$, BigDork has a Shotgun right on my doorstep!" run-for-the-hills may have actually worked.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't know, as something weird is happening with the FS servers. "Texas" and "Original" are all that are showing up for me, and I can't seem to successfully log in to "Original," so I can't be sure if that's UK1 or not.

[Kloreep]

I'll take that as a sign that my gunner's crazed "oh @*!$, BigDork has a Shotgun right on my doorstep!" run-for-the-hills may have actually worked.

UK1's back up, so I see it did. I really got lucky there with where the 5-second turn break fell.

That one's concluded, I've challenged you to a couple new ones. I've never played a Secure before, but I'm pretty sure the map that got generated for that one is not exactly par for the course!

[BigDork]

Sniper rifles vs. SMGs in a close in map is far from fair. :P

[Kloreep]

Hmm, agreed. :/ You could perhaps have gotten a less disadvantageous position if you'd beat me in bidding for the defensive with some of that open terrain up north. But with that copious cover, you'd probably still have been in a bad spot.
BTW, your last sniper might have survived the last turn by using "Continue on Sight" like I did with that machine gunner in our first match. Maybe you were just sick of that match, and fair enough, but that's one trick you should definitely be aware of.

[BigDork]

Geez Kloreep... you definitely own me in this game. I sent you a setup. Never done hostage before, not even sure what it is but figured we could give it a try..

[Kloreep]

I'm afraid of the dark. But okay. Looks like an interesting mode.
In other news, I apparently need some practice with grenade splash zones.