Previews: Flotilla and Frozen Synapse

By: Derek Yu

On: January 28th, 2010

Flotilla is a new space strategy game from Brendon Chung, who’s best known for his stylish spy game Gravity Bone. Even if it ends up being a more awesome version of Weird Worlds, I’m sold. Coming soon to PC and Xbox Live Indie Games.

Also, Mode 7 Games is working on Frozen Synapse, a tactical squad combat game for PC. That’s really all I know about it. But it looks neat, too, doesn’t it?

(Source: Kieron Gillen, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Posted in Previews, Strategy, Videos, Windows, Xbox 360 | Tags: BrendonChung, Mode7Games

Krux

is this the new X-Com or Jagged Alliance? I hope this game will have a good gampley around the tactical missions.
Stargoat

Flotilla looks like a cross between Shadow Armada and Homeworld. This is a good thing.
Alex May

Flotilla’s UI makes me purr.
bateleur

Wow, Flotilla so looks like my kind of thing!

Slightly concerned about the whole business with weak armour on the underside, though… with both sides trying to get under each other but no solid floor, that could get pretty silly. (I’m sure the game deals with this somehow, just wanted to share the amusing mental image!)
Chris.R

You’d think the ships could just rotate, but maybe I’m being too literal minded. That would make it more balanced (IE you’d have to come form both sides to be sure to hit weak armor).
Chris.R

Also, I’d settle for it being as awesome as Weird Words. That’s awesome enough for me.
Ssp

This Brendon Chung guy sure knows his stuff. Looking forward to this!
http://www.microwaving.net Alex

Nobody loves me.
Peach

Be the Homeworld you want to see in the world.
aerloth

Flotilla is turn based homeworld on xbox…

I guess real 3D RTS would be too fast for pad controls.
BJJ

The UI is smooth as cream.
Nice work.
Alehkhs

Ah! Glad to see Flotilla here!
Phasma Felis

Flotilla looks awesome. Agree with bateleur about the “weak bottom armor” thing, though. That seems problematic, and kind of hard to justify in-game.
Phasma Felis

Also, Frozen Synapse looks like fun, but I might buy it just for the soundtrack. Holy shit. =o

Can anyone verify that that that’s the actual game music, not just filler?
fahdiz

Both look fantastic. The Homeworld-ness of Flotilla makes me very happy.
http://chaoseed.com/garden John Evans

Weird Worlds was all about exploring, well, weird worlds…Meeting interesting aliens and collecting cool items. Flotilla just looks like a 3D tactics game.
Derek

Watch the end of the video, John. ;)
http://entardev.wordpress.com Entar

Frozen Synapse looks interesting. It has a little bit of a Laser Squad element to it, definitely reminds me of that game.
Paul Taylor

I can verify that’s going to be in-game music, as I wrote it! Glad you like it so much! There’s more on the way soon.
Dodger

Any game that’s anything like Weird Worlds has to have something good about it since Weird Worlds is still the most Gigawesome indie game ever created. There are plenty of other amazing indie games to choose from, but WW:RIS is probably as close to perfect as you can get! I’d almost dare to say that if any developer creates a game that is half as good as Weird Worlds that game will most certainly be good, if not great.

I like the looks of both games though and want to try them out… now we just need a release date. :-)
chrknudsen

Wow, two cool looking games with similar turn based/simultaneous execution gameplay. Love it!
Stij

I loved Weird Worlds, but the combat was a bit boring. Flotilla’s 3D, turn-based system looks a lot cooler…and I don’t think it’s ever been done before. The graphics seem really stylish, too. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Frozen Synapse…well, tactical games like this aren’t really my forte, but it could be interesting. There definitely seems to be a lot of depth. And again, the art style looks cool. Gives me that Tron, retro-cyberspace sort of vibe.
Ezuku

Mmm… flotilla’s combat doesn’t look too exciting. UI seems worse than Homeworld’s, which easily coped to do the same thing but in realtime. I understand though that the controls have to be xbox appropriate (so no shift-vertical movement I guess). And I dislike the “weak armor on the bottom”. Aside from being counterintuitive (just rotate if you’re the ships on the top), I predict a constant plumet by all ships in an attempt to get below your opponents. I really hope that mechanic as it is doesn’t make it into the final version.

That said, the non-combat weird world’s adventure style instantly switched me on, and I really would like to see mre of that in the next trailer.
iFail

Flotilla certainly looks like Homeworld 2, and the unit names are certainly similar. I just hope it’s a little easier than Homeworld 2, every mission I got into ended with my forces decimated.
Stargoat

Thought I might link Shadow Armada for those interested. Simultaneous-turn based combat. In two dimensions as opposed to Flotilla’s 3. I think it’s pretty awesome.

http://home.comcast.net/~shadowman131/ShadowArmada.htm
Ezuku

Only because in Homeworld 2 there was enemy fleet scaling, but the scaling was rediculous at the larger sides of things. Like in some levels if you took in a small fleet + 2 battlecruisers you’d easily face 13 or 14 battlecruisers. The patches fixed a lot of that.

The Point Defense Systems mod from homeworld 2 was instawin though.
Jotaf

Both games look awesome! And damn, the music in Frozen Synapse is perfect for that game.
superflat

The PC is an Amiga!
kongming

It makes sense for there to be a section of the ship that’s weaker than the others, but it should be the rear rather than the bottom.
Stargoat

Or maybe different on each ship? Analysing the weak points of a given ship, setting your formation to protect the weaker sections as a whole… that would make some pretty interesting gameplay.