Friday, January 29th, 2010
We shimmy deftly into view to have a big argument about Microsoft Points, and talk about utterly contemporary stuff like Tiger Woods, the Apple iPad, game endings and retail vs. digital. JOIN US!
Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page.
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
I have just launched the first Synapse tournament. The players are:
Ian
Paul
Jordan
Melly
Bin
Burn
Mr.K
Nikomof
DBaker
When you sign in you will find two new matches against two of the people on this list, on the same map, with the first match having you as player 1 and the second map having you as player 2. You have 24 hours to do your matches, and the results will be posted tomorrow.
Have fun, and let me know how you think this can be improved.
Ian
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Here’s the third most popular question I’m being asked about the game!
Thank you to everyone who has said that they would very much like to see Frozen Synapse on there.
I’d like to assure everyone that we will be doing everything possible to get our game distributed on Steam.
The first stage of this process is submitting a build to Valve for them to consider, and we will be doing that as soon as it’s appropriate.
Beyond doing that, we do not have any say in the matter – it’s entirely up to Valve.
If you would like to see Frozen Synapse on Steam – maybe you don’t want to buy it from anywhere other than that – then perhaps it might be an idea to post on the Steam forums so that the game gets known on there, or maybe find some polite, appropriate, non-invasive, non-annoying way of contacting Valve to ask them about it.
Someone has already started a thread requesting it here - join in!
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
I have been asked about this an inordinate number of times this week: here are the answers you need…
We are aiming to release Frozen Synapse by the end of the year.
We are not currently able to discuss pricing, but we don’t think our eventual decision will shock anyone.
I think we should have been clearer about those things initially – my apologies. Thanks to everyone who has shown an interest in the game – the trailer is still blowing up the place (metaphorically) and our community is growing slowly but surely. We’re committed to making this game great and releasing it in a sane way so you can buy it – don’t worry!
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
I’m obsessed with finding a rankings system which is exciting and meaningful in the short term – ie, “yes! I did really well over today and now I’m being recognised for it!”. My first solution to this was the “Daily Rankings”, which were rankings based on total points in the last 24 hours. It was a good start, and is a good way of showing who’s been doing well recently, but I think it’s a little too effected by big scores on Secure matches, as well as being a bit de-motivating if you’ve got a big negative score.
So I introduce… Score Streak!
Your Score Streak is basically the number of wins you’ve had, and how many points you’ve won, since you last lost a game. So if you’ve won three in a row you’ll be looking pretty good, but if you then lose a game you’ll be back to zero. (And your Score Streak will be reset if you don’t play for more than two days).
It’s in the beta now, no update required so let me know what you guys think.
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
First up, thanks to the many people who have emailed me asking to be on the beta. I’ve put you on a list. I’m not entirely sure what or when is going to happen to that list, but there is a list, and you are on it.
A bit of inside info: the people we really like to get on the beta are the people who hang around in our irc room (#mode7games on irc.maxgaming.net) for a while, come back a few times, and who we get to know. I’ve found that these are the guys who really stick with the beta and become a good part of the community. If you’re *really* interested in playing Synapse, that’s the best course of action.
When not coding furiously on line-of-sight modes, I’ve been relaxing with the MW2 multiplayer. It’s a lot of fun, but what strikes me most is the kill/death ration of even the top players on a server – it tends to be very close to 1-1. This seems to confirms a suspicion I have, which is that the open level design makes MW2 quite a “random” game, where even a highly experienced and skilled player will be killed from behind a lot. It’s definitely quite a long way from Counter Strike in that regard. Having said that, CS is almost innaccessible to me even despite the 80 hours I’ve put into it over the years – eighty hours is obviously not that much relatively, but I trend to think that if you put that much time into anything you should be able to be at least competitive.
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Better late than never! This week, we discuss tips for indie game developers, ModDB’s Desura, the cult of personality, Ron Jeremy and lots of other things that we probably shouldn’t talk about in public! Take heed!
Check out links from the show on our official Google Reader page
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
First up, apologies for the site’s slowness. One of the following things has happened:
(1) We’re being slashdotted
(2) We’re being hacked
(3) Linode has gotten annoyed with us for some reason
(4) My Dad crashed the server while pissing about with cgi scripts
Obviously, I hope it’s (1)… who knows.
Second, Paul has absolutely promised to have the podcast up tomorrow lunchtime.
And third… Frozen Synapse. We’ve got some internet attention the past two days, and the response has been almost overwhelmingly positive. I am very excited about it.
I am also excited about Line Of Sight, or Dark as I’m calling it. Dark Secure is the new game mode du jour, and I really think you guys will like it. Update the beta as of two hours ago and that mode will be selected by default.
If you know of any forum communities or web sites which would like it, please send them our trailer.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Thanks to everyone for their hard work on this: Bin had to do a lot of boring stuff (including while being ill) and Ian did a great job of directing parts of this trailer as well. Very proud of the team – hard to get decent quality video working online but I think we managed it! Please pass this video around as much as possible – put it on your Facebook page / send it as a “tip” to news sites / tweet about it – we really need your support. Thanks.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
First, a big apology for the massively late Village – we recorded it a full week ago but due to UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES (now that’s a good title for a Steven Seagal film) Paul has been unable to produce it. It will be out tomorrow… please forgive us. On the plus side, it’ll only be a week to wait until the next one!
Now onto Synapse. A new update (pushed my me, just now) includes a level editor (accessible from the Editor menu in the… editor). I announce it because level editors are things which people always get excited about. You can level edit! And indeed, you can level edit and then play a multiplayer game on a level you made yourself! (From the menu, Play Now -> Advanced button). I hacked it together yesterday morning for internal use, I hope you guys get some pleasure from it. And please don’t give me a hard time about my use of the arrow keys in it.
The next update is going to include one (or maybe even two) game modes with Fog Of War enabled. My relationship with fog of war in Synapse is complicated… but there’s no doubt that playing with it on makes for a more exciting experience. I’ll be interested to hear what you guys think. If you want to play a DARK (as I’m calling it) game right now, do Play Now -> Advanced, generate a map, Submit, and select Visibility as “Only at Time 0″. Right now I’d advise a Disputed game, but I’ll be launching a Dark-specific mode soon.
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