Archive for January, 2009
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Burn, Jimmeh, and – hilariously – EC, are the first pre-beta testers. I’m hoping to get Melly, Clacy (get an internet connection), Thom, and Liam (if he ever talks to me again) on it pretty soon.
First, a disclaimer. Previously it was clearly hugely irritating when I talked about Synapse because no-one reading this knew what on earth kind of game it was. Now, the vast majority of you will likely be playing it within a month, so I feel justified talking about it as if you were, indeed, playing it.
Right, so what have we learnt so far? First, in stability terms we’re actually doing pretty well. Everything basically works, although the scoring is pretty dodgy right now. The scoring is pretty damn important so is near the top of my list, but I’m really here to talk about what I think is by far and away the biggest issue with Synapse:
Right now, you’re losing way too many levels because your units aren’t doing what you meant them to do.
This is now a glaring beacon to me and I am aiming the full force of my design brainpower at it. I may think on it and post some more.
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Sunday, January 11th, 2009
I’ve been working hard finishing off some code for the pre-beta, and it is now actually ready. I’m likely coding TV stuff next week but I may be giving the pre-beta to a few Mode7 “outer team” members Tuesday or Wednesday. If you’re wondering what I mean by “pre-beta”, it’s basically the beta but with crap graphics and no tutorial. February is graphics month.
I have no idea what people are going to make about Synapse, and I’m nervous, as you’d have to be. In fact, until at least six people are playing the game every day (they don’t have to play at the same time remember, they just have to play some Synapse) not even I know whether my grand vision is going to work. I’m going to find out before February starts.
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Thursday, January 8th, 2009
Friends-of-Mode7 indie game makers Max Gaming Technology have just got their mech game Lore 2 up in beta on Instant Action. It’s free, take a look.
I haven’t managed to get into a game yet, but sixty people are playing right now so there’s planty of action.
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Thursday, January 8th, 2009
Yep, we have an auto-updater. Jimmeh and Zamez helped me sort out my (fairly boring and self-inflicted) rsync daemon problems, and we’re actually kind of ready to go. The remaining things are:
1. My crazy shaders are crashing people’s computers and I need to either fix them or remove them. Archa, for instance, won’t even be able to start this game because Margaret Thatcher was prime minister when his graphics card was made. I don’t really love the prospect of this, but I guess it has to be done for the beta.
2. A bit of work on the starting experience, so the first 8 endplays are both good and have plays from people on there.
We’ll see how I go with those today.
Also, EC has (quite rightly) told me I can’t have my manifesto coming up in-game in the beta. So I’ll paste it here for your pleasure.
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Frozen Synapse is my vision for a new stage in tactical games. I don’t want one game to take two hours to play. Especially not if I screwed up in the first ten minutes. I want to be given a totally new scenario every time I play. I want to create a plan of what my units are going to do and then execute it. I want to see whether my plan has succeeded or failed, and then I want the score to be taken down and I want to be given a totally new scenario. Clean slate, start over.
I want to be able to choose how I play the game. I want to be able to spend an hour meticulously planning my assault, and I also want to spend one minute making a silly throwaway plan which just might work. I want both of those to be valid play styles. I want the results to be always entertaining.
FS is technically a TBSE (“Turn Based Simultaneous Execution”) game, but I generally use the term STB (“Simultanous Turn Based”). Unlike normal turn based games you aren’t making “moves” per se during your turn. You are giving each of your units a “plan” for what they’ll do in the next 10 seconds. Your opponent is giving his units a plan. When you’ve both finished, you see how the two plans hold up against each other. I love STB because it’s all about prediction and percentages.
A word about the units. The main unit is the Machine Gunner. He kills in one shot and dies in one shot. Who will win a shoot-out between two machine gunners depends on who is in the most cover and who is best “prepared” – a guy crouching aiming at a doorway will always kill a guy running blindly through it.
The current beta of Frozen Synapse is based on “Endplays” – short one-turn games with fifteen second of game time, which will take between five and ten minutes to play. FS will have the full gamut of normal “turn-based” game options, and I’d expect many people to prefer the more standard “multi-turn” matches. But Endplays are about low-pressure nuggets of tactical gameplay that will be available at any time for you to play and then watch the results. The idea is that as FS becomes popular you could expect a hundred people to play the same Endplay – you submit your turn and then see how it fares against the best, worst, shortest, longest, weirdest of the competition.
Finally, there are a lot of advanced orders in FS which I wouldn’t expect you to use to start with. Play around with them and ask for instructions on the forums.
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Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
I’ve actually succeeded in doing what I talked about last post, and I’m very happy with it. Synapse is now much more gamey and if you sit down, log in, and hit the “Play Synapse Now” button then you will actually have an experience that is somewhat like the experience of playing Synapse.
I wouldn’t IMAGINE mentioning the possibility of a beta. However, were I able to fix the autoupdater and have some energy this weekend I might, MIGHT, start distributing a copy to some very select people.
But those select people would have to agree beforehand to ignore the (lack of) graphics…
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Sunday, January 4th, 2009
Worked all day yesterday on Synapse, and am settleing down to it again today. Unfortunately, I have to step back off the Synapse Wagon tomorrow to do two different TV things. I’m hoping to get a draft of what I’m doing done today and then find some time to refine it a little later this week.
What I’m doing to Synapse right now is basically working on the experience of playing. We have the gameplay in a presentable state whereyou can basically load a level and play it and finish it just fine. It needs a lot of tweaking obviously but one absolutely can play Synapse right now. But what you don’t have is a good system for showing you how you’ve done.
Without going into much detail, you basically “play” a Synapse level (lay out your tactical plan for the level) and then, when you’ve finished, you are scored based on how other people played the other side of that level. Say you’re attacking a house and the other team is defending. You create your “play” for how your units will take the house. Other people will have been defending, and they will have created their play for how their units will take the house. When you’re done the system plays your attack plan against their defense plan and sees how you did.
And that all works – you can look individually at how you’ve done and be given your score. But it’s not anywhere near a “gamey” enough experience. What you need is for you to submit your play, and then be taken through a sequence where you see your play against, say, the three defenses against whom your success or failure will define your score. It needs to be exciting – you’ve made your play and you think it’s a good one. The game then shows you your play verses another person’s play and then you see what happens. Either YES! it works and you get a good score, or NOOOO you got completely owned and you get a bad score.
Because this is a pretty bizarre thing to a gamer, cerainly a new experience and an idea which is going to be a little difficult to grasp, it’s essential that this part of the game works very smoothly and self-explanatorily. Wish me luck.
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Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
I’m working on Synapse! God it feels good.
This week I’ve taken a fresh look at what we’ve got and decided to implement a simpler to play structure, which allows you to hit a button and just play a level. I’m hoping to have that, and scoring, up by tonight. Then Clacy, EC, Bin and me should be able to play a little before the Falcons game. Excited!
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Friday, January 2nd, 2009
EC and I are having a big meeting today to work out how 09 is going to go for Mode7. I will report soon on what is decided.
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