Is there anything that hasn’t been included in the beta so far, that you want to still put into the game?

The single player campaign is the big one. We’re still working on the exact structure and content, but that should go into full production very soon. It should make all the difference to those people who wanted a meaty and atmospheric single player.

From a design standpoint, what’s been the biggest challenge in development so far? Has there been any aspect of gameplay that you’ve really had to work on to get balanced, or fine tuned that made you guys stay up at night trying to figure out?

Probably getting the in-game UI to a usable state has been the biggest struggle for me; I think for Ian probably some of the early stages of working out exactly what the core of the gameplay was. We initially started off with something that involved rewinding time and refining your plan a lot more - I think pushing through that to the gameplay we have now was really tough.

What about purely from a technical standpoint, have there been any technical issues that were particularly difficult to overcome?

Getting the whole matchmaking system and back-end stuff going seemed to be a massive chore, but that’s done now and we’re very happy with it.

Stepping outside of your perspective as a developer, do you have a personal favorite aspect of the game, just as a gamer? A favorite game mode, or just a particular detail that, as a gamer, you enjoy?

I really enjoy directly predicting someone’s moves. If I’ve played a few games against someone, I get to know their personality and I can say, "Ah, I bet he’s going to put a rocket here and THAT MEANS he’s probably going to then follow up by moving his guys up HERE!" When you go through that process and you get it right, it’s immensely satisfying. If you get it wrong, it’s just funny!

I’m interested to know, what type of games do you play in your own time? What are some of your all-time favorites, what are you currently playing?

I’ve been playing games a lot less recently. The last game I completed was Prey on the 360, which I got for £2 in a bargain bin! Good game to find in a bargain bin! I’ve also finally got around to playing Starcraft 2 and that’s definitely an interesting experience.

In terms of classics, we love the 90’s era of PC gaming. So things like Wing Commander / Strike Commander, Terra Nova, Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper...

This is something I like to ask indie developers... what’s wrong with mainstream gaming right now? I mean obviously there’s a lot right going on, but I think we all have little gripes, and some big ones, about the games we play, but as an indie developer you have the ability to go out and make a game, that hopefully doesn’t include any of the pet peeves you might have about other people’s games... so what are some of the pitfalls you try to avoid that you see in the industry right now?

I’m really f***ng bored of people saying, "Oh you HAVE to do such-and-such business model" or "You HAVE to make such-and-such genre" - that’s always total bullshit. Our industry is just like any other entertainment industry - nobody knows 100% what’s going to work. Nobody could have predicted Minecraft - you could have shown that game to a panel of experts and they wouldn’t have got anywhere near predicting the level of success it has.

People need to be more intelligent and subtle about the lessons they draw from other successful games.

One thing I dislike about the mainstream industry is the guys who have money being totally cavalier with the people who work for them. We once had to lay off a staff member because we ran out of money, so I know what that process is like; I just think these guys who own bigger companies need to man up and do a better job of working as a proper team with their staff. In an indie company, you’re seriously all in it together, you’re a proper team - I’d never swap that for anything else.

So far you’ve released a sword fighting game and a turn-based action game... is there a specific genre that, at least in theory, you’d really like to work on in the future?

We definitely want to do more simultaneous-turn-based games - it’s a seriously underused mechanic and we want to bring it back in a big way! As you’ve noted, we’re not really genre-based developers, but I think we’ve started to get close to the style of games we want to do with this one.

For more information you can follow Frozen Synapse on Facebook or check out the official site for podcasts, IRC chat and more retro fun. The game is set for release Q1 2011 for PC and Mac.