Determinance screenshot

Mutators

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.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 2:16 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

41 Responses to “Mutators”

  1. iLag:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    how about some really silly mutators? 200% speed increase for rocket units? increased/decreased range on all weaponry? warping units around randomly after they killed another unit? I’d love to see that.

  2. Ian:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    I like it – fun mutators.

  3. Simon:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    How about “hot coals”: All units must keep moving by at least 5m every turn or they die.

  4. Har:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 2:49 pm

    The focus-aim is a great idea. In many matches without explosive units some players tend to camp their way to victory. I am a firm believer that risks should be more rewarding if you can predict the positioning.
    Another thing that would be interesting is to enable a blind fire order for machine guns. That way you could show at will your position to opponents without line of sight or start shooting at a corner that you anticipate them to come through (could be useful to allow prepared MG units to counter a near Shotgun unit).
    Just some ideas that sprang to mind…

    Awesome job with the game guys! Keep it up!

  5. BPaddon:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    It all sounds really great! I cant wait until this is released :)

  6. ANON:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 3:08 pm

    ADD.
    A.
    CLOCK.

    Make the game 15000000000000000000000x time competitive by adding a customisable time control, just like competitive chess. 5mn+5sec a move, 10+5, 10+1, 15+5 etc etc etc, JUST DO IT ;~;

    Or at least give us the option to mod it ourselves, but seriously, this is the ONLY thing the game needs.

  7. Ian:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    Thanks for the feedback everyone.

    ANON – this is 100% confirmed as coming.

  8. Oleg:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    nice ideas, imo these features must be consistent for every game

  9. Ix:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    All mutators sound good. I would love to see silly mutators too. Maybe something to increase the speed of all units? :D

  10. Frozen Synapse DLC Mutates | Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    [...] forward Mode7′s Ian Hardingham. J’accuse! Mutators will be included in the upcoming Frozen Synapse DLC, eh? Thought you could get away with time-travelling thievery? How else could you come up with the [...]

  11. acky:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    how about a gas grenade that has greater range than an explosive grenade but expands slowly and kills units that stay in continuously for a certain amount of time?

  12. ironicnet:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:46 pm

    How about adding items?

    Kevlar vest, allows you to survive to more impacts or something like that.

    Allow the deploy of claymore mines.

    Allow the chance of shooting covered (like the guys that shoots over a corner without seeing anything)…

    Add Doors, and then add explosives for the doors.

    Make the rockets be affected by gravity.

    Allow the rocket gunner to shoot to the floor (its very frustrating when you have only a rocket gunner and no walls are left).

    Allow throwing and switching to different grenades types (flashbangs, cluster, napalm).

    *** Allow units to pickup other weapons from other dead units ***

    It would be awesome to kill a sniper and be able to snipe with it…

  13. ironicnet:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:49 pm

    Also, is there a way to check for a game in a web or by email?

    Whenever i received the “new turn is ready”, i would like to see at least a summary or a replay of that turn.

    Also would like to link to that particular game using only a link, without having to upload it to youtube. It would be a really great feature!

  14. ironicnet:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    Sorry guys but i’m inspired…

    Is anyway to make aiming more effective while duck? that would be great

    Also jumping over obstacles, sometimes there is a window, but we know that we could just jump in :P

    And if tomorrow you can, make a Paintball version of frozen synapse ;)

  15. ironicnet:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    Sorry, me again…

    Also bleeding would be a nice feature…

    I hit someone, then i lose sight… would be great to see the trail of blood :P

  16. leif:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 6:47 pm

    1. A choice to put a order-timer into the game, you have for example 1 minute to make moves until your units will make the moves that you have put out. If you AFK or Disconnect they stand still but the game goes on.
    2. This would allow spectating the game, so add spectating but with a delay or something similair.
    3. If this happens we would both be able to stream the game when playing casual or spectating, making it possible to cast games live which would increase the E-sport value ALOT.

    This is seriously what this game needs. Any remarks about “I don’t want FS to go fast”. That’s why there would be an option to play “timed” games and allow spectating.

  17. Hawk:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 6:50 pm

    All nice features (both in the post and in the comments) but FS has a nice, clean style at the moment and I would be extremely careful not to ruin that with feature bloat.

    I would rather have GUI improvements like custom key-bindings, custom playback speed (several levels of slow-motion), and timeline scrubbing while playback is paused.

    Additionally, I want to be able to view the plans of both sides of finished matches, and to be able to turn off ‘vision’ of either opponent in finished matches of dark game modes.

    Things like that are at the top of my wish list, and I hope some of them will be in the DLC.

  18. leif:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    4. If Timed-games was implemented there should be an option to watch a replay of the game in live speed, you see for example when he does the tactics and clicks them out, erases them and then puts them out different to just press “commit”. So you would watch the replay as if you were looking at the same screen as the player when it was played.

  19. leif:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 7:05 pm

    I’m with Hawk, I don’t need fancy featuers, the game is fine as it is gameplay wise. Just add UI improvements for viewing games as a third person and playing them in a fast manner to open up for live casting or streaming.

  20. leif:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    Also remember this quote “Frozen Synapse is simple. Frozen Synapse is also complex.” It’s probably the only thing that makes me play Frozen Synapse as it is. It’s also probably why it got such good reviews where an overcomplicated game wouldn’t have been received as well.

  21. Ian:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    Guys, please don’t worry about the game being over-complicated by these things. They’re for advanced players to experiment with and explore, and they’re only available from the Advanced game creation screen – not match making or simple creation.

  22. ANON:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    clocks
    timers
    both

  23. BreakDown:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 9:20 pm

    very nice information, i cant wait for the DLC.

  24. Glock360:

    § January 25th, 2012 at 11:12 pm

    The question is:

    How will the auto-updater working with the linux version? AND Will the linux version get the auto-updater (if it gets how)? Pleas support linux users!

    All the mutators sounds exciting, can’t wait.

  25. Norwegian_Demon:

    § January 26th, 2012 at 4:32 am

    I love the ideas! especially from Hawk and some others! Can’t wait for the Dlc to come!

  26. sl33tbl1nd:

    § January 26th, 2012 at 7:15 am

    Focus-Aim seems like a brilliant idea. Can’t wait for this.

  27. Games Arena » Blog Archive » Forzen Synapse primeste Mutators:

    § January 26th, 2012 at 9:03 am

    [...] Sursa: Mode7 Games [...]

  28. James:

    § January 26th, 2012 at 7:13 pm

    Glock360: The auto-updater will be coming to Linux and it should work in much the same way as the Windows version.

  29. Andrew:

    § January 26th, 2012 at 8:01 pm

    All I want is a 4-player multiplayer. Please? :P

  30. Des "Mutators" dans Frozen Synapse | Indius:

    § January 27th, 2012 at 4:00 pm

    [...]  Plus d’info sur le site officiel. [...]

  31. Frozen Synapse DLC To Add Mutators & Music | Video Game Deals & UK News | Dealspwn.com:

    § January 27th, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    [...] From a gameplay standpoint, though, we're more excited about a slew of mutators that will add new and interesting dimensions to the gameplay. Double Kill will allow units to simultaneously frag each other, Focus Aiming nerfs camping by making mobile ambushes more accurate and Move-And-Shoot does exactly what it says on the tin. You can read more at the Mode 7 Blog. [...]

  32. Raltay:

    § January 27th, 2012 at 7:00 pm

    Everything sounds nice and all, but I have two questions:

    1) How much will that DLC cost?

    2) Will it be possible for non Windows (non-Steam users) Humble Indie Buyers to buy that DLC?

  33. Ian:

    § January 27th, 2012 at 7:40 pm

    Hi Raltay. The DLC will be available on all platforms. We haven’t quite worked out a price yet.

  34. Efe:

    § January 27th, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    How about smoke shells for grenade units? May be used to break line of sight and perhaps add more tactical depth to the game!

  35. Hawk:

    § February 1st, 2012 at 3:07 pm

    I just thought about this: wouldn’t the double-kill mutator make campers harder to beat? In particular for situations where there is only one access to the camper’s position.

    Or is there something I haven’t though of that would negate that effect?

  36. Hawk:

    § February 3rd, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Oops, I just realized that I misunderstood or misread what the double kill mutator is supposed to do here. I thought that it meant that one unit could kill two enemy units if they were close together. I think it’s because I read something about that on the forum and I confused it.

  37. blubb:

    § February 7th, 2012 at 12:02 am

    It’s not about being worried about making the game too complicated. It really is the simplicity of the gameplay which intrigues me at the moment. Expansion Packs or a lot of added features are likely to destroy that fascination for me. You see, for me it is like chess in a different settings with slightly different rules and a more complex environment but still as simple as it gets. The mutators mentioned in the news itself sound promising if implemented carefully. The timer as well, although I enjoy the possibility to take my time and just stop playing basically whenever I want.
    Some may say I don’t need to use the features if I don’t want to but if there is something about the game I don’t know about naturally I’d like to know about it and start to fiddle with it. I prefer to understand the game fully as it is and start playing and stop messing around with new features not lacking the feeling that I do not know about half of the game. And the shoot and move or the focus aim is not exactly a feature I find it reasonable to pay for. These features tested and balanced thoroughly should be implemented in the game anyway.

  38. Ross:

    § February 7th, 2012 at 8:07 am

    As an ex-heavy player, I share the concerns of those above re: making the game too complex though I understand it’s advanced custom games only.

    Also while the timer would be good, it has the issue that I know the devs have pointed out before; than it may fragment the playerbase between those that want the timer and those that don’t.

    As player-base dwindles this becomes more of an issue.

    This is still my favourite game on Steam.

  39. IndieGames.com - The Weblog Frozen Synapse Update & DLC On the Way:

    § February 15th, 2012 at 4:56 pm

    [...] January 26, 2012 5:00 PM | Lewie Procter Mode 7 games are far from done fiddling with their Multi-IGF nominated simultaneous turn-based strategy game, Frozen Synapse. They're in the process of porting it to the iPad, and some features that are designed with the iPad version in mind will be rolled into the PC version too. One such feature is a brand new hotseat mode, a multiplayer mode that lets people play against each other on just one device (be it iPad or PC). Mode 7's Ian Hardingham said on twitter about the hotseat mode "I'm hoping to implement it next week; get it out to people to test; and probably officially release it a bit after that." Also upcoming is Frozen Synapse DLC, which will feature amongst other things, Mutators. Modifiers for the ruleset to change the dynamics of the game. Read more about the Mutators over on the Mode 7 blog. [...]

  40. fard0che:

    § February 17th, 2012 at 3:17 am

    Shoot rockets on the ground.
    too often I am left with only a rocket and the game is over if my opponent is not moving near walls.

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