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Frozen Synapse | iPad and Android Versions are Out!
TychoCelchuuu
PIGEONRegistered User regular
PIGEONRegistered User regular
Greetings. How are your synapses? Thawed? We'll have to do something about that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOTi0T0CEV4Frozen Synapse is a simultaneous turn-based squad-based tactical digital electronic Internet strategy video PC computer game. It's Rainbow 6: Rogue Spear's planning mode, plus X-COM's anonymous men, plus TRON's aesthetic, plus the new TRON's soundtrack, plus Neal Stephenson's brain. And Laser Squad Nemesis.
It has both single player and multiplayer. Each turn, you give orders to your men, and then you submit your orders. Your opponent does the same, and you watch them play out for a few seconds. Then, the next turn.
There are many different game modes: deathmatch, hostage rescue, territory secure, and so on. The game can be played almost real-time, with both players submitting their turns as they come up, or you can play at a more leisurely pace and submit your turn when you get around to it. You'll get an email when a game you're playing has a new turn.
And the soundtrack is the best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJrUY27O0YThe single player is pretty good. It's just your basic "here is your mission" sort of structure, but it has a neat cyberpunk story wrapped in there, and it's a good way to get used to controlling your vatforms, which are the vat-grown soldiers that you are in charge of. It has some Steam achievements! The campaign has characters with endearing names like Soulsby, Smythe, and Nix. It basically reads like a Neal Stephenson novel, if Neal Stephenson could grasp the concept of brevity.
The Red expansion adds two player coop to the single player, plus a bunch of extra missions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIQifwjPhzQMultiplayer is where the action is at. There are a ton of game modes, and the maps are randomly generated, as are the men you start with. "How is that balanced?" you might ask. Well, sometimes it's not, but usually it is, BECAUSE:
- Often the game mode allows you to deploy your men how you wish to mitigate the effects of randomness
- Many of the game modes start with players "bidding" for the area they think they can defend, or secure. That is, you both take a guess at how well you would do as attacker, and the more ambitious guesser "wins" and attacks. This means that you'll only ever have to do as well as you think you can do on the map.
- You can opt to battle on randomly generated maps that others have already played (but that you and your opponent have not) so that you can compare your performance to others in your situation
- Random is fun! It eliminates the tedium
Your basic vatform, the man with the machinegun is good at all ranges, but he excels at medium ranges. Close up, shotguns will shred him, and from far off, snipers will destroy him. He is versatile and capable, and his favorite food is synthesized protein.
The man with the shotgun is ideal for close quarters situations, where nobody can best him. If you need to burst into a room, bring a shotgun and hope that the defenders did not also bring a shotgun. Not much use in the open unless he's up against explosives, where he can just run past them. His favorite food is synthesized protein.
The grenade is the only real indirect fire weapon you have, and it's extremely useful because you can kill people without exposing yourself. Timing grenades right and trying to predict where your opponent will fire grenades adds a hugely complex layer of strategy into the game. His favorite food is synthesized protein.
The rocket launcher is a beast. It destroys cover and anyone who gets caught within its blast radius. Your only hope is to get close to these guys, forcing them to run or kill themselves, or to stay in the open, where their rocket can't impact on anything. Destroying terrain dynamically reshapes the battlefield and makes things so exciting that you'll want to burst. His favorite food is synthesized protein.
The riot shield is an invaluable tool for preventing death by bullet. Just deploy this sucker and watch the magic happen! It can also be used to ricochet grenades, so if you plan it right you can get a grenade in somewhere your opponent wasn't expecting. The riot shield unit is a new addition in the Red expansion pack. Her favorite food is synthesized protein.
The little "C" next to the hacker's name stands for civilian, and that's because this guy just chills out at his hacker desk, hacking stuff. You don't give him any orders. What is this useless sack of shit for, you ask? Well, in the Upload game mode, you have to protect him will simultaneously trying to kill the enemy hacker. His favorite food is synthesized protein.
There are always and only ever two hostages in the Hostage game mode. The attackers must rescue the hostages at any cost, while the defenders mostly just want to shoot them. You can't shoot the hostages until they leave their starting area, though. Their favorite food is synthesized protein.
The sniper is good at shooting people at long ranges. That's pretty much it. He's a quiet guy who doesn't make much of a bang and his favorite food is synthesized protein.
PA Frozen Synapse Steam Group (Vatforms With Attitude)
Introduction to the game for new players
Rock Paper Shotgun review
Rock Paper Shotgun article about "beating Mike Gapper"
Frozen Synapse wiki, including Steam link
Official forums
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJqR6lh0t10
PM me (TychoCelchuuu) to get on the list. Also, we have two (?) Steam Groups (PAFS and PA FS), so of course I made a third, which you should join. That way we can consolidate.
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TychoCelchuuu
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The RED Expansion adds RED mode which is RED. It also adds hotseat play, more single player missions, coop for all the single player stuff, optional time limits on turns in multiplayer so that my ADHD turns into a tactical advantage, the riot shield, new music, three "mutators" that can change the gameplay to add variety, and a new gameplay mode where you protect your hacker while attempting to kill the enemy hacker. It's $10. Check out the trailer.
TychoCelchuuu on
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I wish I could do that right now, but I think my wife may actually kill me if I bought a new game at this moment.
I've pre-ordered and tinkered with it at work, and it's fun so far. Feels like quite the learning curve.
To answer an earlier question, it's basically a PBEM style buried in their central server interface. So it's all asynchronous. No direct connection, it's all done through accounts on their server. Or at least, so what I've been told.
Colour me intrigued
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK20mtyyoFo&feature=related
Steam ID
Beta is already going, if you pre-order the game you get access to it, plus a free copy for someone else. I actually just ordered it because I wanted to see if it will run on my work computer, but sadly I don't want to risk a +50mb download today lest my boss be watching the network, so no install until later tonight.
The fact that explosives destroy world geometry makes me happy every time I see a rocket or grenade soldier in my team. Nothing like getting your guys all set, then blowing a hole in the wall, exposing enemy troops to your lines of fire.
It seems pretty key to keep at least two or three games or more on the move or else you can get bored waiting for people to send back turns (or if they've gone off to do something else, so they aren't playing right then). Provided you have no issues with picking up and dropping games on the fly, it works very well. You can play as little or as much at a time as you like.
If anyone wants to start up a game with me, my account name on there is the same as on here.
This is what a game looks like in real-time. 16 seconds!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIy_NyuKMAk
EDIT: Auto-export to youtube is a great feature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoOJOXMew4Y
edit:
hivemind.
I bought it because I was just about to begin working on my own simultaneous turn based strategy game. I was about to begin working on my own strategy game because I figured I'd have to do it myself if I wanted it done at all. . . now I don't have to!
edit 2 electric bugaloo:
is one of you guys blindside? dude won't stop challenging me to a game and I have like a dozen emails from the automated superspam device they've developed, and I only activated my game like 45 minutes ago.
EDIT: Example. This match lasted 1 round, 6 seconds of real-time executions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeIidOWh-s
I'm quite fond of the 'secured' gametype. As mentioned in the RPS write-up, bidding for territory alleviates any oddities of the randomly generated maps/unit combos, and it ensures that units start in appropriate locations for a drawn out fight.
Me playing a secure dark game. The map was a real bitch layout, so I deliberately underbid in an effort to be the attacker. Started off great, creeping my guys up at the bottom ducked down behind cover, then having them both stand up simultaneously which gave them enough advantage to take out the first guy. Then I completely fucked up, and he worked a shotgunner through two of my men in one turn. Ran in with my last machine gunner for a hail mary attempt at sitting in the zone for 3s, and managed to take out his shotgunner, and he never got his other guy around the corner to stop me in time.
Random.
Gamertag: Cunning Hekate // League of Legends: FeroxPA
I've had the purchase webpage open all day with my info sitting there, just waiting for me to commit.
I hope they implement some kind of purchasing system at some point in the future. It wouldn't be that difficult.
Then again, trying to work with the hand you've been dealt is kinda the game's focus.
Gamertag: Cunning Hekate // League of Legends: FeroxPA
Or maybe they're just being stored because this is a beta and it's for data mining purposes and showing bugs.
Yeah, can't be more than a couple of kilobytes of waypoint data and orders per game, assuming there's no random stuff with the AI and targeting - but it doesn't seem that way from the videos.
Think I'll be picking this up.
Well it's by some of the LSN guys so...
Pretty similar in some sense.
Yeah, I was wondering how it compared. I remember looking into LSN and it had seemed really cool.
Works well for the game. Because you can play lots of games at once, you can be taking turns in one whilst waiting for a response in others. So even with though the beta playerbase is relatively small (like maybe a few dozen online), the games are fast and can happen simultaneously, so everyone gets to keep playing.
In a way it's obvious, but it's still a pretty intelligent implementation they've done, you usually don't need to search long before you start a game.
Gamertag: Cunning Hekate // League of Legends: FeroxPA
Lost a sniper to an extremely bullshit shot last night, but otherwise it's been pretty good. I sure do suck at the game though, just lost an extermination match by 169 points.