The state of play
Videos speak louder than words, as absolutely no sages of old would have us believe, so here is a quick gameplay vid that shows the precise state of the game RIGHT NOW...
I'm happy to reveal this - our policy with videos has been "no bullshit" so far and we're sticking to that. We want to give you a good look at the game as it develops.
A lot of new graphical stuff is on the way (including very nice things like blood splattering walls, a new shotgun effect and the full force of the background generator) but we're pretty happy with how things are looking at the moment.
Pre-order beta announcement
We have decided that the game will definitely be released as a "pre-order-gets-you-the-beta" very soon. This means that you will pay for the full version of the game in advance, but get immediate access to the beta and every single update we put out until the full release version.
The feature list is basically finalised: I will reveal the whole thing in the next few weeks.
PR!
We had a great visit from Henry Winchester from PC Format magazine this morning - we should have a preview in there very soon. On Tuesday next week, we'll be heading to Bath to visit PC Gamer, Edge and anyone else from Future Publishing who wants to turn up! These occasions are always really fun and we hope this will be no exception.
Testing...testing...
Our big beta test at Reading University was a great success! We'd like to thank the staff and students there for making the experience great all round and run really smoothly. A massive amount of very useful data was collected. Here is a quick vid...
We were very pleased that all of the testers rated the game very positively; they also flagged a lot of useful issues with the UI that we are working on every day, trying to make the game as usable as possible.
You can do an incredible amount in Frozen Synapse: move a unit to a pixel-perfect position, make him wait, aim, set his stance, tell him to ignore certain enemies, cast a glance across the room, duck in and out of cover....Giving the user all this power but keeping the interface tidy is a really huge challenge and we're facing up to it - it's tough, but we'll get there eventually.
More soon! We're back into UI crunch to get some of the fixes we've identified in there and polish the game even more - I will keep you updated.
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I look forward to try this game. Will the game be free or will there be a demo?
Just find it a bit strange that two guys just went by eachother when they were on opposing teams at one part of the video.
Glad you like the look of it.
The game won't be free, but there will eventually be a demo. There is a pre-order version coming soon.
In the game, when you're getting a unit to move quickly without trying to engage hostiles, he'll ignore any units in his line of sight.
In this game, both teams weren't aware of where the other team were, so you got that funny "rounding the corner" moment - think of it as just a bit of confusion in the heat of battle!
Ah alright. Now generally I bet people would think that it not being free is a bad thing. But by the looks of it. You guys have more than enough reasons to do it. I think you deserve some money for your effort.
Keep up the good work. Indies rule!
Thank you - that's a really nice comment. We're trying to make big, full games that aren't throwaway experiences: we need a team and we all need to work full time to make games like this, so just from a creative point of view (all business aside) we need to charge money!
hmm i think this game looks good cant wait to play it :D i love the destruction simple but awesome :D
Thank you - yep, we like that debris effect and Matt's been working hard on those explosions.
Awesome stuff. I can't wait to play!
Cheers!
Seeing the server was interesting. I wasn't aware that it is that busy even with just about 15 clients connected. Do you have any idea how many clients it can handle without slowdown? Can it if necessary be distributed? (i.e. having one server to handle login, feed and stuff, and then multiple ones to handle matches)
You'll need to ask Ian about that! All I know is that the turn files are incredibly small and, although we're obviously going to do more tests, we're not anticipating any problems at the moment.
Reminds me of metal gear, that's awesome xD
Oh and, just a question, but because I haven't really been following this game, is it Turn based or real time?
Glad you like how it looks!
It's simultaneous-turn-based - you and your opponent's turns are played out together.