Frozen Synapse developers Mode Seven have been quietly talking about changing the name of their exceedingly clever but regrettably-titled strategic robo-sports game Frozen Endzone for some time now. Tired of all the friendzone puns and concerned about how much it overstated the American Football aspect, they’ve only gone and done it. Frozen Endzone is no more: as of today we have Frozen Cortex. Or, Frendzone is no more: now we have FroCo. >

The name isn’t all that’s changed. As of any minute now, Frozen Cortex also boasts a new, more heavily sci-fi look, revamped AI, a big performance boost and Mac/Linux builds. This is a major update, not a mere rebrand. I had a chat with Mode Seven’s Paul Taylor and Ian Hardingham about why they’ve changed so much after so long – including their reasoning for (and risks of) that rebranding. Read on for that and a glimpse of the new-look game.> … [visit site to read more]

I dug strategy/futuresports robo-tournament Frozen Endzone, but while I’m well aware it’s just in beta form for now I’m very much in need of more personality (and in the game, etc) and variety if I’m to be in it for the long haul. Fortunately devs Mode 7 have detailed their plans for the game’s first major update, and it sounds as though they’ll be tackling HAHA LIKE IN SPORT quite a few of grumbles I grumbled its way, grumblily. (more…)

Frozen Endzone is a primarily multiplayer turn-based strategy game about robots playing American Football. Calling it the result of XCOM and Speedball having one hot night together wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate, but it has rather more in common with its acclaimed predecessor, Frozen Synapse. Its beta is out today.>

Yes, yes, Friendzone, Cold Arse, jolly good, we’ve all giggled about it enough times now. I’m going to give you thirty seconds to get it all out of your system.

(I really would have changed the game name if I were Mode 7, but I do admire their resolve). (more…)

Are you ready for some hard-hitting, neon-sweat-slick (but not like in those silly Gatorade commercials) eSports? I mean that literally, too: Frozen Synapse developer Mode 7 has devised its very own electronic sport. Balls are thrown, touchdowns are scored, lives are at stake>. OK, maybe not so much that last one, but that’s not to say that Frozen Endzone is a total departure from Frozen Synapse’s simultaneous turn-based battle of wits and weaponry. For one, it reprises the latter’s brand of two-steps-ahead-or-else-you’re-dead strategy, and also an inordinate number of things are blue. Something for everyone! Watch it in action and learn about the right-around-the-corner beta below.

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Frozen Endzone, Mode 7′s futuro-sports game that I would like to take on the cheeky little nickname of Frozone, is not out yet. For the people who want to play it this a problem on many levels. I sympathise, and at least have some news that’ll excite and thrill you. Frozone’s beta is about to go public, and you’ll be able to buy into it sometime in November. When in November? No idea. This November? I am 99% certain the November they mention in the press release is this November. Anyone buying a copy will receive an extra copy of the full game when it’s released, a generous trick they pulled with Frozen Synapse. (more…)

Crossplay used to be what happened to me when I played Team Fortress 2, but after a restraining order from my mouse pad and some anger management classes, I no longer feel the need to be angry at Pyros. Now the world has moved on, the word has taken on a new meaning: what happens when one gaming system and another defy all cultural boundaries and work together. Frozen Synapse is about to do just that with its iPad version: you’ll be able to play multiplayer across the PC and the iPad, and if you own both versions then you can continue your game you were playing on whatever system you have at hand. Toilet time just got tactical. (more…)

As well as pointing my tragically non-robotic eyes at robot futuresports / strategy game Frozen Endzone last week, I also had a long natter with Mode 7 founders Ian Hardingham and Paul Taylor about their follow-up to the splendid Frozen Synapse. Read on for its origin story, how it’s not really like American Football, their roguelike-like plans for the game’s singleplayer mode, inevitable comparisons to Blood Bowl and Speedball, and Luigi fanfic.> (more…)

Frozen Endzone is a turn-based futuresports game from the creators of asynchronous strategy game Frozen Synapse. I went to see it last week. I drove there in a car and everything. I returned with the following words and thoughts.>

I was anxious, worried, scared: this I will admit. Me, a 5’6″, nebbish man of words and screens whose strongest-ever investment in sport was playing badminton once a week for a year, on my way to see a game ostensibly about American Football? Out of my depth, surely. I read a Wikipedia page about American football before I set off to visit Frozen Synapse, and now Frozen Endzone, developers Mode 7 in their Oxfordshire studio, but it only made me more confused.

Turns out I needn’t have worried. Frozen Endzone is sports in theme only – in practice it’s turn-based strategy, and a natural heir to the men vs men tactical gunplay of Frozen Synapse despite its complete lack of metal tubes which go bangbangbang. (more…)

Juuuust a quick one, as I shall be returning on Tuesday with vastly more fulsome news on Frozen Endzone, Mode 7′s next game after the wonderful Frozen Synapse. But they’ve just gone live with a trailer and a Greenlight page, so see what you think. It’s a future sports game. It’s a strategy game. In other words, it’s a sports game that isn’t really a sports game. And it looks well flash.

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Simon Roth is best known as the newest recruit to Frozen Synapse creators Mode 7, but he’s also one of the most veteran developers in the entire history of the world, if my research is correct. And he’s moonlighting on a side-project all of his own, the Bullfrog/early Maxis-inspired sci-fi management game Maia. This isn’t a matter of keeping colonists happy with space ice cream and zero-grav toilets – we’re promised the likes of ‘up to 2KM X 2KM X 2KM of procedural world’, water and lava simulation, defensive structures to fend off hostile wildlife, bipolar robots and a first-person mode.

Oh, dare I dream ‘sci-fi Dungeon Keeper’? (more…)