Frozen Synapse and "Red" - Worth it for the soundtrack alone

[keith.lamothe]

The login works now, must have been server overload. It's a HARD game. I can't even find the simulate enemy moves button, that would make my life easier.

During the planning phase you can "give orders" to the enemy units exactly the same way you do to your own.  The only difference is that when you prime the turn the enemies don't do what you told them to

Edit: though perhaps you already know that, having played more of the campaign than I have

[Coppermantis]

Ohhhhhh. That's good to know, thanks. I'm only on the third mission of the campaign. The second one is totally easy but the third one is neigh impossible for me.

[Volatar]

Ohhhhhh. That's good to know, thanks. I'm only on the third mission of the campaign. The second one is totally easy but the third one is neigh impossible for me.

Is that the escort mission?

[Coppermantis]

Right. I just beat it though, Being able to simulate possible hostile movement helps a lot.

[BobTheJanitor]

Right. I just beat it though, Being able to simulate possible hostile movement helps a lot.

Yeah, I wish they would make that more obvious in the game. People don't know it's there, and for me it's the single most important thing about planning your strategy. If you just have to vaguely guess what the enemy might do, your failure rate goes up dramatically. But being able to sim things like 'if I pop out of cover and he spins around at the same instant, who is going to die?' is extremely important to winning games.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I had no idea you could do that until it was mentioned here (thanks!).  I may well have missed it in the tutorial text, etc.  As much griping as I do about "people don't read" when doing new-player-experience stuff, I tend to have little enough energy when I get to actually play a game that I'm basically the same way.

[BobTheJanitor]

Yea, I had no idea you could do that until it was mentioned here (thanks!).  I may well have missed it in the tutorial text, etc.  As much griping as I do about "people don't read" when doing new-player-experience stuff, I tend to have little enough energy when I get to actually play a game that I'm basically the same way.

The best tutorials, for me at least, are those that actually walk you through the process of doing things. Valve are the geniuses of this, of course. Their tutorials don't even look like tutorials, but they make it blatantly obvious what you're supposed to do, and make it impossible for you to proceed without doing it, so that by the time you get past that point they know for sure that you now know how to do thing X. I started FS so long ago that I don't even remember what their tutorial was like, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was sort of a vague wall of text infodump, i.e. the worst type of tutorial (outside of no tutorial or misleading tutorials, but we don't count those).

[keith.lamothe]

Iirc FS's actually has you do what they're talking about.  It's a fine methodology, I just don't remember it covering the give-orders-to-enemy-units thing at all.

[Volatar]

Just listened to said sountrack and oh my, was he right. It IS awesome.

[Mánagarmr]

Just listened to said sountrack and oh my, was he right. It IS awesome.

Told you! ^_^

"Complexity" is damn near orgasmic.

[zespri]

I tried Frozen Synapse a while ago and while I thought it was cool I didn't get past the first (or second, I forget) mission because it was basically "meticulously plan, run a bunch of simulations that look really promising, commit turn, die horribly".

Any pointers to a guide/etc for "How to enjoy..." Frozen Synapse?

Yep, I had exactly the same experience. This is definitely not a game for me.