I think it’s pretty much a given now that I’m a fan of creative indie games, particularly ones that put unusual twists on established formulae. There’s one I haven’t really talked about here yet, and I feel I should rectify this forthwith.
My brother (John Davison of GameSpot, for those three of you who haven’t realised that yet and are now going “Oh, yeah!”) mentioned on Twitter the other day that asynchronous multiplayer was “multiplayer for grown-ups”. Or specifically, multiplayer for people with little to no free time. Eminently suitable for those with jobs. Or those with families. Or those who simply suck at action/skill-based multiplayer titles.
Mode 7 Games’ Frozen Synapse caters for this crowd, specifically the subset of it who wish that they could pull off a headshot at a hundred paces but no longer have the reflexes of a twelve-year old with too much sugar and caffeine in their system. Frozen Synapse is, at heart, a team-based first-person shooter, albeit one represented from a top-down view played in turns by only two people. So not a lot like a first-person shooter at all, really.
Except that it kind of is. For the uninitiated, Frozen Synapse features a wide selection of different game modes, many of which will be familiar to players of shooty-shooty-bang-bang games. The simplest is Extermination mode, which simply tasks one team with killing the other team before five turns are up.
Each turn represents a five-second period of time, during which your little people can run, walk, duck, crawl, aim, shoot and focus on specific targets. It’s your job to set up a plan of action for them by setting waypoints and actions, then testing your plan to see where they’ll end up after five seconds, then committing your plan. At the same time, your opponent is also doing this, and when both of you have committed your plans, the outcome is shown, and it may not be what you had anticipated.
The cool thing about it, though, is that you don’t both have to be online to play. It’s essentially play-by-email, with the game sending a message to your opponent when you’ve taken your turn and it’s time to check out the carnage. This means that you can have a whole bunch of games on the go at the same time, and be able to rattle through them all in a matter of minutes. It’s a great idea, and it’s awesome to see this kind of idea work in a setting other than a game with With Friends in the title.
Best of all, the game plays well and it’s not even finished yet. The final product promises a single-player campaign mode, puzzle mode and all manner of other goodies. Those who are keen to support the game can pre-order and play the beta version right now, though, and you get a free copy to give to a friend, too. Which is nice.
Even better than that, the game is 30% off until Christmas. So if you’re the slightest bit interested in the unusual concept—and it genuinely does work really rather well—I’d encourage you to support the hard-working three-man team that is Mode 7 and pre-order a copy now.
If you do, be sure to send me a challenge. I cordially invite you to the turn-based bloodbath.
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