7h30n

Have you tried playing on easier difficulties? It's no shame to play on the easiest setting. If you can't cope with the easiest setting, then sorry if the previous sentence offended you. Other than that, it seems you prefer strategy games mixed with RPG (and vice-verse). I would recommend Expeditions: Conquistador. I bought it on GOGs summer sale and I find it quite enjoyable. The game is set during the period of colonization of Americas and you play a role of a Spanish Conquistador. There are multiple choices and the game mixes real historical facts with some fiction. Gameplay is turn based, and the combat plays like a simplified Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders. It's a really unique game.

Oh no, now I'll have to pay what I pledged Can't wait to see the single player, it sounds very ambitious!

Thanks SV! Unfortunately I have some issues ... (so that's why I'm inactive) Anyways I backed the kickstarter. Julian's games really have some sort of a board game charm which really works for me.

So, uhm. Why is this not funded yet? I'm playing the released prototype and enjoying it. Mr. "X-Com" Gollop really knows how to design those turn based games! http://www.chaos-reborn.com/prototype-game-play-guide

Looks rather interesting. Hope you make the goal!

Aw man! I never played Syndicate (actually played old demo version or smth.), but this seems awesome! Aw man! Greenlight: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=157080530

Well, I'm defending my thesis this thursday and waiting for the final exam results and then I'm done for the semester. But, the faculty is far from finished, next step is master's degree in Computer Science (2 more years) And then I'm done... unless I'm crazy enough to pursue Ph.D.

Yeah, I'm still around. Gone off the grid (from forums and games) as I was on my final semester for bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Now I got to defend my final thesis and I'm on vacation, what better way to spend it playing Frozen Synapse And judging by our recent matches, it seems the tables have turned How are things goin' with you people and forums?

And I would be surprised if that wasn't the case. The saving of a random seed is a way to prevent save scumming with one time actions, e.g. you save, fire off a shot and it misses and you keep reloading until you get a shot. It is a reasonable way to deal with save scumming random elements and any sane developer will put it in his game if it has randomness. Of course it brings another set of problems because people can abuse the order of the randomly generated outcomes but that isn't as bad as trying to get the "perfect random" outcomes when the random seed isn't saved.

Oh shit! This is it, I'm embarking on the final mission! Wish me luck! Hopefully there won't be many sectopods, because my first encounter with them was heart stopping!

Hmm, I always bring 2 Heavies with me on a mission. I guess I prefer explosive solutions On the other hand I think Assaults are useless. Shotguns are so short ranged you need to come up close and personal which is carries a great risk of activating another spawn or 2 and that comes at a too great cost. I keep one Assault just for finishing off the last enemy with Run 'n Gun up to his face and rapid firing that bugger! Just finished a UFO crashed mission by shooting 2 rockets inside a UFO to open up my line of fire for the sniper because what was inside the UFO was to dangerous to be fought head on. Love my heavies! One of them is even fully developed psi soldier and hits 100% with psi attacks which is a nice sub for his primary attack.

Pfft, I just had a "run for your life" moment. Never thought things could get this hard on tactical side. Started a terror mission at the end of August in Russia. Sent out a rookie to scout, spotted a spawn of Heavy Floaters. My sniper got to work and took out the first one. On alien turn 3 more spawns of floaters enter the area and get their free turn. One falls to overwatch the rest remain alive. I fire off a rocket at the civilian standing between 2 floaters and my assault runs to good position to take one out. Next turn, even more floaters come to fight. This time overwatch wasn't effective at all. I said, eff it! Dashed all my guys into extraction zone and aborted the mission. Russia immediately withdrew from the project! Council report gave me an A rank, lol!

Fresh bad time: I just finished the Assault on the Alien Base on Classic Ironman. It was in July and I was doing fine then suddenly a wild muton appeared out of thin air among my squad. Ofcourse it was a narrow hallway with most of my troops around each other and he used his magical yet insect based surprise to throw a grenade. It was Super Effective, taking out 3 of my men! Later in the alien base the game managed to bug me even more and spawn a cyberdisc along with 2 drones in the middle of my squad yet again out of thin air. Luckily since it was a "proper spawn" this time, I didn't get shot and dealt with it quickly and easily. In the end I lost 1 more guy since both of my supports were dead beacuse of that muton and no one could heal Curse you bloody bugs!

Keep 'em coming! I got a flu or smth. Been stuck in bed for a couple of days, and these videos bring joy I dare not play my C/IM game while under flu symptoms xD

Completely redesign the game! 360 vision, alien tele-patrols coupled with their free moves when spotted is just ridiculous design. Unfortunately if one those things is changed it makes a butterfly effect on whole game mechanics. As much as I hate how the game is designed it is designed very tightly and all elements have their mechanical place. Sorry, I'm on a rant streak. Some things that are easily fixed: - make soldier's items available for others when he is removed from the squad - mark tiles that have line of sight to seen aliens

I'm using 2 heavies per mission (each with every rocket possible for acquiring) and had it happen only once. There's nothing better than shredding 3 mutons. When the haywire missile happened it hit 2 instead of 3 as I aimed in the center so I'm not sure whether the "miss" is free aimed like in original or aimed like panic shots are aimed in this game. I would hope it is free aim but since panic shots don't have that I presume the missed rocket actually targets something which totally sucks and is another point off of the game. Speaking of friendly fire. I was on a terror mission and 3 Chryssalids came out of fog of war and surrounded the civilian. Along came also a zombie. It was a tough decision. I fired a shredder rocket on the civilian. Killed him, exploded the cars and all 3 Chryssalids died. Who am I kidding, it wasn't a tough decision, it had to be done!

Something similiar happened to me once. I fired a rocket and the heavy yelled "Missile haywire!" as the rocket missed the target by a couple of tiles. I presume that was not a bug because the missile has 90% chance to hit and it happened more often in the original. It really brought back memories and I'm glad that mechanic still exists, although very rare (once in 3 C/IM playthroughs)

Aaaand I lost another game on C/IM. Even on the same date as my 1st game. I was on a wound free streak for a month but at the end of month Council disband cinematic triggered. It seems I'm better in tactical portion of the game than strategic. Rushing for Carapace Armor and Laser Rifles appears as a good bet on C/IM but I should invest in satellites more and manage terror levels better. How are things going with you people?

Started my first game on Classic Ironman. It was going pretty well (losing a rookie every mission)... Then I met the mutons. It seems the AI knows when to use granades Mutons wiped the floor with my under prepared team and I lost the game months later. I will never forget the sound the Mutons produce! Now I'm on my second game, also Classic Ironman. Going a bit better, I rushed my research to Laser weapons and Armor upgrades (playing it like original). Met the mutons again, thankfully the sound gave them away as soon as I landed on a mission so I had my squad spread out. I just finished a terror mission no only without casualties but also without getting hit. Chrysallids had no chance! So far the tactical portion is going fine but I'm one country away from Council disbanding Had a rough start and a lot of countries gave up quickly... P.S. I have a love/hate relationship with the game. There are so many things wrong with XCOM yet I can't stop playing it.

I thought the demo sucked. Voice acting is among the worst I've heard. Interface still looks like it's for gamepad (and I might even use it to play this game 'properly'). Cinematic camera is really annoying (thankfully it can be turned off) and the overall camera work completely wrecks the atmosphere I adored in the original. Tactics and strategy - I cannot talk about them since there weren't any present in the demo. Overall it feels a lot like style over substance. I can look past the control and interface issues, but I hope the rest of the game isn't a linear cover based shooter.

Looks interesting. At first it reminded me of that ol' Commandos clone: "Chicago 1950" or some other 19xx year. I'm really looking forward to it (especially so since there are no games of this type anymore). Tactical gameplay looks like to me like a mix of Jagged Alliance and Freedom Force (for some weird reason).

I finally found time to play Portal 2. Took me 8 hours to finish it, and the game is a sweet treat. Story focused gameplay makes it inferior to Portal 1 for me, but it is still one of the best games. A day ago I installed Rage because I wanted an FPS fix, and who other to turn to but ID. I was pleasingly surprised. The game looks and runs phenomenally well! Shootouts are some of the well done I've ever seen: sound of weapons, enemies reacting to gunshots etc. Too bad the health regen totally feels out of place. Oh, and FOV + mouse accel made the game completely unplayable until I changed some .cfg files. Driving is also well done, although all this downtime between excellent shooting and boring story attempts is driving me insane. One moment I would give the game an avarage rating, but when fun part starts I would declare it best FPS ever. Verdict: Best FPS of 2011 (but I haven't played Serious Sam 3 yet). Half Life 1 & 2, ID titles before Doom 3, Duke Nukem 3D, Serious Sam and NOLF are still the best in the genre for me. Oh, and I just got challenged to a Frozen Synapse game from our favourite SV

I would also recommend to play: Gorky 17 My personal favourite is UFO: Enemy Unknown. After that I would go with Jagged Alliance. What UFO:EU did best (in my opinion) was the setting, atmosphere and strategy layer on top of the turn based squad combat! What Jagged Alliance did best (in my opinion) was the sheer complexity of the combat and non player characters you cared about. Linear or branching story? Linear story almost always offers much more polishing time to the developers, much more control and overall the linear story that way gets much more thought. On the other hand, branching storyline offers the player excellent replay incentive, but it is very hard for the developer to make meaningful choices that make the whole story good. Personally, I would go with something what Deus Ex did (I'm referencing here Deus Ex 1 because in my opinion it had a superior storytelling than other games in the series) - offer player (sometimes not so obvious) choices on certain things but keep the story linear to keep it coherent, concise and great! But, is story really necessary in a turn based tactical squad based game? I really have hard time remembering following or being engaged with a story in a game like that, unless I was playing some Strategy RPG in vein of Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics... Does that mean I don't want the story in you game? No, but a good story requires a lot of work! Concerning mechanics and gameplay: I recommend you do what you think is the best, what you would like to put in the genre. Don't take for e.g. Jagged Alliance and make the gameplay 'same as that but modern and better'. Take those games as inspiration to find new solutions to turn based combat. After all there aren't that many games in this genre, I'm sure there is room for something completely different yet familiar! Good luck and I can't wait to see what will the final product be!

Looks like I'm about to drop the habit of always winning telling by the current game's status

Meh... Your games are too long. I win vs SV in 2 turns without any losses It seems you are on your bad days and I'm on my good, because I read you like an open book with huge-size font