Heading back on the train from GameCity in Nottingham at the end of October, there was one piece of news still ringing in my ears: Frozen Synapse is heading to iPad.

It didn't seem to matter whether I was a fan of the game or not – developers who knew Mode 7 Games wanted me to know it was iPad bound, and it was going to be big.

The suggestion by the studio's joint-MD and co-founder Paul Taylor that the iPad version – not due until early 2012 - is already generating a bit of buzz, therefore, is not hard to believe.

But while Mode 7 looks to have the promo side of Frozen Synapse's iPad debut down, the actual mechanics of play are a different manner.

We caught up with Paul to find out why he's so determined Mode 7's splash on tablets will bring a whole new level of control to tactical play on touchscreens.

Coming from the PC and Mac market, what drew you to have a crack on iPad?

Paul Taylor: Firstly, we had a huge amount of requests for it from the community.

Every thread on the game would feature an "OMG IPAD VERSION WANT" comment, and other such glittering examples of the beautiful diction Shakespeare gave us. There comes a point where you can't continue to ignore that sort of thing, and the ideas start forming.

Also, we have seen other indie titles do well on iPad and we think the market is ready for a deeper, more complex strategy game. Finally, both Ian - our co-founder and lead designer - and I love iPad as a platform. We just want to play our game on there.

Turn-based games solve so many of the difficulties developers face with multiplayer on that kind of device.

Plus, the fact that you can carry it around with you and take your turn whenever you want should be perfect – Frozen Synapse was always intended to be a game designed to fit into the odd moment when you just wanted something quick to play that still had some strategic depth.

Considering it's already something of a packed market, how do you plan to make noise on iOS?
Frozen Synapse has already picked up a little bit of buzz thanks to its performance on Steam and the fact it recently headlined a Humble Indie Bundle.

We've broken out of the little indie games bubble to some extent, so we want to use that to start getting noticed on iOS.

We don't take anything for granted, though, it will be extremely difficult to make a big impact. As you can see, we've decided to announce relatively early and then start talking about everything publicly as much as possible.

I plan to blog a lot over on our website during the process of iPad development, and the usual trailers and videos will get going soon. Our community has provided us with so many opportunities to get attention in the past - we hope they'll get behind this project and help us out.

While I'm heinously plugging, I may as well go all-in – please also follow me on Twitter!

How has the development process been?

We've been working with a skilled iOS developer - hi James - to get the porting work done, but we've consciously divided development into two phases.

The first phase is the port itself - getting everything running correctly, but phase two is the design of the interface. They are completely different tasks, and we're just starting the second phase.

We were discussing this today - for Frozen Synapse to work on the iPad, we have to stop pretending that the user's finger is a mouse pointer.

So many iPad developers do this and it drives me absolutely crazy. You don't have mouseover indicators, you don't have a tiny little pointer that can differentiate between small objects - you have to accept that level of fine control is not there.

It's my absolute mission to work on a way of resolving this for Frozen Synapse. I want the game to be intuitive and I don't want to have the 'selection nightmare' problem that so many complex interfaces have on the device.

It's a massive, massive challenge, but we're taking it extremely seriously.

Community seems to be a big aspect of Frozen Synapse. Do you have any specific plans on that score for iOS?

The big way we're doing this is with cross-platform multiplayer - there will be no segregation of the community and everyone will be able to play together.

Also, you'll be able to do a turn on your PC in the morning, take your iPad to work with you, and take a turn on it in the same match in your lunch hour, assuming you have both versions - everything should have continuity.

Aside from that, we really hope iPad users will get involved with our existing forums, IRC channel, Facebook and Twitter as well.

Will you just utilise Game Center for the multiplayer, or will tap up some other platforms like OpenFeint?

We're currently planning on using our own server software, which is a version of what we're using for the PC version.

We will be using push notifications, however, so that you can see when you have a new turn.

What do you make of iOS overall?

I'm a relatively new iPad user, but I have become a total convert - it just streamlines particular tasks so well. The attitude behind it is clearly, 'Let's make a device which is amazing at a few specific things', and I really appreciate that kind of targeted design.

Initially, I wasn't certain of the advantages over something like a netbook, but the extreme level of portability combined with an OS that is focused on throwing immediately useful things in front of the user as much as possible is a total win. It's pretty hard to separate from my iPad at this point in time.

Stuff for the future - I like the direction of stuff like Newsstand, which again is about making content accessible. I think that kind of thing can be taken much further and I'm sure we'll see the evolution of it with future updates.

Any plans to target Android tablets – or, indeed, Windows 8 tablets - in the future?

We're completely focussed on this iPad version at the moment; that will set the benchmark for us in terms of what we decide to do next. Never say never.
Thanks to Paul for his time.

You can find out more about Frozen Synapse on the game's website.