Rezzed: Enter The Frendzone
The only part of me miserable after Rezzed is my thighs. I had to choose between all the games on the show floor and all those talks in the giant room of developer brain thinks. The decision was almost unbearable, so for the first eight hours of the first day I was stood in the corridor between the two, hoping that being equidistant would allow me to experience both. It did not. Then someone pointed out that my screaming was drowning out the talks, and that the developer talks were being streamed and saved online. So I missed this talk by Mode 7 about their life as indie devs. They skip merrily through their past, touching briefly on their sky-based sword fighting game Determinance, before peeking into their break-out hit Frozen Synapse. All that inevitably ends up with at look at upcoming turn-based futuro-sports game, Frozen Endzone. We can all experience it together, right now.
Alec has already sprinted his way into the Frozen Endzone, and the talk elaborates on that chit-chat and shows a little bit about how the planning works. Turns in particular work differently from their shooter with specific moves, like long-runs or throws, causing a break in the action to allow the other player a chance to react. You can definitely see Synapse's influence on it. The talk starts 8 minutes in.
If you don't have the time to watch all that right now, here's a brief trailer showing off the new stadium environment.
Frozen Endzone will be out in 2014, and there's a lovely Steam Greenlight page to follow.