Determinance screenshot

Frozen Synapse for the PS3 and Vita and other things

Frozen Synapse for the PS3 and Vita and other things

I’m genuinely extremely excited about this.  Here are some random info-bullets:

  • FS iPad is in full production and nearing final beta.  FS Android is <REDACTED>.
  • I have personally been working on our next game full time (apart from a break to design Red) for the last 15 months, and we will be announcing it extremely soon.  Working on this has been fantastic – we’ve got hall of fame art and animation leads in Rich Whitelock and Martin Binfield.  We felt we were one step away at art coding so we recently traded up in the draft to select Julio Jones (aka Martin Johnson).  Myself and the legendary knife-throwing Bin have been iterating gameplay.  Somewhere in a shed Paul is making music and shouting at IRC.  I cannot wait to show you guys what we’ve been working on.
  • I’ve seen some people worrying that Frozen Synapse will somehow be “dumbed-down” for consoles.  Firstly, I’m massively excited that I made a game that people think is in danger of being dumbed-down.  Secondly, Double11 weren’t attracted to this project by the vast intellectual property that is Frozen Synapse, they were attracted by the gameplay, and there has never been any question of changing it.  We’re talking about possibly adding another game mode and there will be some changes and additions to the single player missions, but you have my guarantee that in gameplay terms this is the FS you know and love.
  • The deluxe graphical reboot that Double11 are working on is pretty breathtaking.  I’m sure we’ll be releasing some screenshots soon.
  • The Vita is by a distance my favorite console.  I love the controls, the screen, how it is to hold, and the weird and wonderful back-catalog of PSP and PS1 games.  I’m someone who likes to game next to my wife when we’re watching TV or when I’m in bed, and the Vita is just perfect for me.  (I’m aware that new games have been a bit slow coming out – I think that’s set to dramatically improve this year.)  FS on the Vita is a complete dream for me.  FS was always designed to be a game you played while watching tv.
  • There probably won’t be cross-play between PC and PS3/Vita players.  This isn’t because of Sony: Sony are up for pretty much anything and were fully supportive of this feature.  In the end I decided that it was more important to be able to update the PC version whenever I wanted without having to worry about breaking cross-play or needing to go through Sony approval for a PS3 patch.
  • A note about Sony in general: they’ve been an absolute pleasure to work with, and our main contact, Shahid Ahmad, very clearly only has one priority: to get great games on their platforms.  I’ve heard some horror stories about some other platform holders recently, but Sony have treated us with complete respect and have a “let’s get this done” attitude.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2013 at 11:24 am 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.

2 Responses to “Frozen Synapse for the PS3 and Vita and other things”

  1. Visiting the Village: The Mode 7 Games Blog and Podcast » Blog Archive » “This Particular Version of An Indie Game I Like Has Been Cancelled!”:

    § February 3rd, 2013 at 2:52 pm

    [...] we’re talking about new versions of things I thought I would quickly deal with an issue that vexes indies a great [...]

  2. Visiting the Village: The Mode 7 Games Blog and Podcast » Blog Archive » What Mode 7 is working on right now!:

    § February 3rd, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    [...] Ian has posted a recent update about this here. [...]