Frozen Endzone - Future Sports from the Makers of Frozen Synapse

McSasquatch

I had completely forgotten about this until I noticed the beta launched today. Basically, Mode 7 have taken the same formula for Frozen Synapse (ie tactical planning carried out simultaneously by both players) and applied it to a Speedball-lite futuristic sports game. Here's the trailer for the beta launch;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eTxRNlaZyY

I've become quite wary of pre-ordering games and the trend towards paying full price for early/beta access is annoying, but I had so much fun with Synapse, I bought Endzone today. Have only played the tutorial so far, but it will be incredibly familiar to you if you've spent any time at all with FS.

There's a lot of stuff coming including a single player story mode and various season modes that will include player stats, customisation etc, but at the moment it all feels a bit basic. Still, if you liked FS and it's deceptively simple premise you'll feel at home. Various editions are available from the official site but they all contain two codes (one for you, one for a friend) which will be addable to Steam in February or so and a 30% voucher against the Steam version of Speedball 2 HD (again not available right now). Cheapest pack is €19 or so for the two keys.

cherryghost

Well that video sold it for me. Getting it now

Kiith

Ugh, i hate how he seys beta...

The game looks pretty cool though. Might pick it up once they add some more features.

McSasquatch

cherryghost wrote: »

Well that video sold it for me. Getting it now

How are you getting on? I've only played vs the AI so far due to time constraints and pretty much suck like I did with Synapse.

cherryghost

Only AI also, about 50-50 in winrate I guess. I'm a bit hooked ^^

McSasquatch

I've nowhere near that win rate - I completely suck (or the AI really is psychic/cheating). But I am enjoying it. If you're up for a human "opponent", my name ingame is the same as here!

McSasquatch

They've revealed what will be in the next big update over on the Mode 7 forums (not out til February unfortunately, but I'm guessing it's to coincide with when it's added to Steam), as well as some longer term plans. All sounds rather promising!

- Player stats including speed, blocking, strength, evade, resilience, burst, interception, catching, throwing stats
- Edit your own team with player stats and challenge other people's teams online
- Redesigned and polished Handball mode. Handball is quite a lot different from "Endzone" as it's a longer-form mode with interceptions and turnovers and end-to-end action. There is currently an alpha version of Handball in the beta
- Easy-to-use playfield editor
- Game mode editor
- Timed turns
- Loads of new tackle and celebration animations
- Loads of bug fixes and little tweaks

(A lot of these are already in the staging beta and will be available to play with very soon).

After that, our plans for updates leading to the full release include:

- Full single player campaign with an in-depth story
- Customise your players with different armour and animations and a facial animation editor
- Customise your "home stadium" with trophies, stadium furniture, special announcer voices, scoreboard graphics
- Several more multiplayer game modes

Other platforms:

Linux and OSX in Spring next year
iPad, PS4 planned but nothing concrete yet.

mayordenis

do the steam keys not work yet, will they only work when it goes to full release?

McSasquatch

No, it's not on Steam yet. The key you receive now can be used to add the game to Steam in February but for now, it's Steamless. From reading the future plans thingy, it seems that that February release won't be the final release either.