Determinance screenshot

Archive for January, 2012

2vAI or 2v2 ?

Monday, January 30th, 2012

2vAI or 2v2 ?

I can probably only do one of these for the DLC.  Please tell me which one you’d like!

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Hotseat

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

I managed to get a lot of Hotseat done on friday.  We’re hoping to launch it for everyone in the next week or two.  Here are a couple of screenies (my Esteemed Colleague has not prettified them much yet):

 

 

Posted in News | 3 Comments »

Hotseat and twitter

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Hotseat and twitter

UK1 is down right now for an upgrade for the upcoming patch.  It should be back up within an hour.  When we post the patch you’ll immediately have access to the new Open Challenge system.

 

Do follow me on twitter for server and other game updates: @IanHardingham

 

We’re putting offline hotseat in the game for both PC/OSX/Linux and iPad versions.  That is what I’m working on today!

Posted in News | 5 Comments »

Frozen Synapse Postmortem

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Frozen Synapse Postmortem

I wrote about the entire dev process on Frozen Synapse for Gamasutra here. Thanks to everyone at Gama for letting us write on there – it’s always very cool.

Posted in News | 7 Comments »

Mutators

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Mutators

James is finishing up the auto-updater and the first update.  We’ve fixed quite a few problems and we’re also launching the new Open Challenge system – I hope you guys will be pleased.

 

This week I’ve been working on the new unit (which I’ll talk about soon), but what I’ve started on today is Mutators – a medium-sized part of the DLC.

 

One of the things I really want to do with FS now is to subvert some of the rules and see how it impacts the play of the game as a whole.  Today I’m implementing “Double Kill”, which when activated will remove the only vaguely luck-based element of the game.  When two units engage eath other with *exactly* the same situation, currently a slightly arcane process chooses who dies.  With the Double Kill mutator enabled both units will die.

Here are the other mutators I have planned for the DLC:

- Focus Aim – when move-aiming, if you round a corner and engage someone very close to where you set the target, you are said to be “focus aiming”, and would have a big advantage over that enemy.  This would lead to less camping, as camping units would be killable by moving units if you can predict exactly where they are.

- Move-and-shoot: You continue moving on your plan while targetting and firing at the enemy.

Mutators are enabled from within the Advanced Creation editor, and if you load a game with mutators enabled you will be informed in a very clear way.  They are not allowed in standard match-making.  The new Open Challenge system should work really well with this functionality.  Mutators will be available for AI skirmish games (no guarantees the AI will use them effectively though.)

Let me know what you think.

Posted in News | 41 Comments »

Friday

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Friday

Jimmeh has just, as I started typing this, fixed the OSX full-screen crash bug.  That fix will be in the update coming next week.  He’s working on the Mac updater now.

 

I’m still chasing the mid-turn outcome change bug.  By the end of today I hope to have a bulletproof fix for it.

Posted in News | 5 Comments »

Esports!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Esports!

We can officially say that Frozen Synapse is hurting esports thanks to these awesome casted FS games from the Rock Paper Synapse show!

If you’re doing an FS tournament / casting matches and you would like us to mention / feature you on the blog etc. then please drop me a line on Twitter @mode7games

Posted in News | 1 Comment »

Thursday

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Thursday

Today I’m tackling the big one – the rare but still existant desync/past-change.  I’ve got a replicateable case which I can bang my head against.

 

These have kept popping up, and I’ve kept fixing individual problems.  I thought we had them all but obviously we don’t.  I’m hoping this is the last one.

Posted in News | 1 Comment »

SOPA and PIPA

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Mode 7 would like to express our support for all of those protesting against SOPA and PIPA today.

We believe that this legislation could threaten the forms of communication which allow us to act effectively, both as a company and as individuals.

Further information:

Wired UK’s guide: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/17/sopa-101
Wikipedia’s FAQ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://blacklist.eff.org/
RockPaperShotgun – http://www.rockpapershotgun.com

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Wednesday: AI Levels and SOPA

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Wednesday: AI Levels and SOPA

I’ve just fixed the “AI Level 3″ crash, and I’ve also added AI Level 4, for the truly insane and people running quantum computers.  These will be in the patch.

 

I’ve also added a couple of new Extermination map generator settings.

 

We haven’t actually blacked out for anti-SOPA, but we support it whole-heartedly.  Here’s a message from my esteemed colleague:

 

Mode 7 would like to express our support for all of those protesting against SOPA and PIPA today.

We believe that this legislation could threaten the forms of communication which allow us to act effectively, both as a company and as individuals.

Further information:

Wired UK’s guide: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/17/sopa-101
Wikipedia’s FAQ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://blacklist.eff.org/
RockPaperShotgun – http://www.rockpapershotgun.com

 

As a final note from me: freedom of speech is the freedom which leads to all other freedoms.  Do we really want to risk giving all that up to stop teenagers pirating films?  No thanks.  And this is coming from someone whose product is pirated a lot.

Posted in News | 2 Comments »