Frozen Synapse, the indie strategy hit, is finally landing on the iPad on Thursday, May 16.
Frozen Synapse originally premiered on the PC in 2011, quickly grabbing the attention of gamers and becoming a huge financial and critical success for developer Mode 7 Games. Frozen Synapse takes advantage of asychronous multiplayer, which allows players to start as many games as they want and play against opponents one turn at a time, even when other players are offline. Many popular mobile multiplayer games have similar capabilities.
The iOS adaptation of Frozen Synapse was actually announced back in 2011 for a 2012 release, but delays pushed the release date back a full year. That extra year has given Mode 7 Games, the developers of Frozen Synapse, plenty of time to perfect the mobile version of the game.
Mode 7's Paul Taylor recently wrote a piece for GamesIndustry in which he discussed the challenges of going multi-platform. Although this is a port, it doesn't appear that much has been lost in translation. A press release from Mode 7 details the features of the iPad version of Frozen Synapse:
1. Play the full single player campaign and every multiplayer mode from the original game
2. Enjoy full cross-play on the same account: start a game on your desktop and finish it on your tablet, perhaps during a boring family occasion
3. Luxuriate in the portability of tablet gameplay with a brand new interface crafted explicitly for your horrendous wiggling digits
4. Hotseat your way to both friends and fortune (fortune sold separately) with local multiplayer! Passing your device around in a public place has never been more likely to excite your forlorn cortex
5. And a whole lot more!
In other words, this is a full-featured rendition of the original title, complete with new features as well. Local multiplayer should allow for much faster games, and will help to grow the audience for the turn-based tactics title. Mode 7 is currently working on their third game, a spiritual successor to Frozen Synapse called Frozen Endzone, which the developer describes as "the premier tactical future sports game," and should see release next year.
In case you don't have access to an iPad, an Android version of the game is also in development and should release before the end of May.
Check out a video of iPad-PC cross-play in action below:
