Future Flashback

[eri0o]

futureflashbackgame.com

Story:

Behold a future where a drug is capable of recreate vivid memories. Untangle the obsessive mind of an ex surgeon, that after an accident starts reliving the memories of a girl he never met, seeing her past, looking into her dreams and unfolding the mysterious future they share together.

Expected Release date: 2020

Story by Guilherme Henrique
Programing by Erico Porto
Art by Ricardo Juchem
Music by Jordan Pool

Screenshots:





Blog | YouTube Channel | Facebook Page | Twitter @futureflashbck | presskit() | indieDB

Update Log:
0 - 30 Jul 2017 - Game Announcement
1 - 31 Aug 2017 - Theme Music Reveal
2 - 24 Sep 2017 - Game Menu is a Smartphone
3 - 02 Oct 2017 - Characters Portrait Reveal
4 - 19 Oct 2017 - Gameplay video of First Level
5 - 28 Oct 2017 - Title Screen and updated Theme Music
6 -  4 Nov 2017 - We Have a Website
7 - 10 Nov 2017 - The evolution of a background art
8 - 14 Nov 2017 - Social Networks + Ship of Theseus Development
9 - 17 Dec 2017 - Screenshot and New Background
10 -  8 Apr 2018 - More Screenshots
11 - 10 Jul 2018 - One more screenshot, art streaming and Future Flashback in a game event!
12 - 21 Aug 2018 - Geek & Game Rio Festival 2018
13 - 17 Sep 2018 - Going to AdventureX
14 - 18 Nov 2018 - Future Flashback on AdventureX
15 - 15 Dec 2018 - Library Screenshot
16 - 31 Dec 2018 - 2018 Recap
17 - 13 Feb 2019 - Steam Capsules poll
18 - 13 Jul 2019 - A small update of themes

[Frodo]

Loving those screenshots! 
And the story is intriguing, as well. 

[horusr]

Very nice graphics and I wonder how can we play that story.
But 2019 a little far away

[selmiak]

neon world GFX are always cool! Looking great so far and the story blurb is also very interesting. The only downside is the release date that is so far away!!!

[Riaise]

This looks great and the story sounds intriguing. I'm interested to hear more about it!

[dactylopus]

Sounds like an interesting story, and it looks fantastic!

[Nixxon]

Aaarrgh what sexy artwork. Really nice!

[Gurok]

This looks very nice!

You've picked a very reasonable release date too.

I wish you the best of luck with getting it done.

[Cassiebsg]

Good luck with this.
Lovely art and intriguing story.

[CrashPL]

I'm getting some sweet Blade Runner/Akira flashbacks just by watching the screenshots. Definitely gonna keep my eye on this one.

[CaptainD]

This project is giving me serious Technobablyon vibes.  All the best with production, definitely one to keep an eye on!

[Hobo]

Looks great and I'm digging that story pitch. Also, well done on the realistic release date Most AGS projects really underestimate the length of their development process.

[eri0o]

Guys you are all great, thanks for the positive responses! This community is awesome!

The release date is a bit in the future, I know. We have already planned the whole game, we broke it in how many AGS rooms we are going to have, and extrapolated the time to end development from the time we spent in each room we already developed, so hopefully this is reasonably realistic.

The game interface will allow the player to interact and look using the mouse, and have an inventory to store and use items, we started from the BASS template and have been iterating from there. The game resolution is going to be 320x180, so it will scale nice in 16:9 screens.

[Fitz]

This project is giving me serious Technobablyon vibes.  All the best with production, definitely one to keep an eye on!

My first thought was Until I Have You -- especially the story revolving around a guy haunted by memories of a girl. Looks and sounds great. And kudos for devising a realistic schedulue and ETA.

[AnasAbdin]

Great story and awesome art
Looking forward playing the game

[Atavismus]

Pixel art the way it should be!
Be sure I just pushed the "Notify" button

[LimboJimbo84]

Looks awesome, I was drawn in by the title which reminded me of the Amiga game Flashback. Kind of a similar vibe going on, can't wait to play this

[Mandle]

This looks very nice!

You've picked a very reasonable release date too.

I wish you the best of luck with getting it done.

+1

How many times have we seen WIP posts naming a release date within the year only to either fade away and never be heard from again or show up two years later with an announcement that the game is almost finished, or even finally get released 5-10 years later?

A realistic schedule tells me at least that you have the staying power to get the game done, or at least release it at some point even if it's not 100% what you had planned out right at the start.

It looks awesome so far and best of luck!

[SilverSpook]

Looks cyberpunktastic! Would you be interested in being on a podcast? I specialize in cyberpunk, sci-fi and story-rich adventure games, and would love to have a chat if you'd like to promote your game there.

[SarahLiz]

Ooooo, this looks really neat.

[Surdy]

WOW! A lot of Blade Runner's dystopia good vibes here Love it. Keep up the good work.

[BrainMayhem]

It's cool to see other brazilian folks fiddling with AGS!
Best luck with your game, I'm sure you guys will have an amazing time developing it

[nanoriver]

Can you please do me a favour and release the game right now?
I love the screenshots and already cant wait to get my hands on this

[ricardojuchem]

Hello, I am the artist behind this project and I just want to thank you people for the kind words.
I'm glad that you are getting some of the references.

Stay tuned for updates. Cheers!

[eri0o]

Hey guys! So here's a small update, this time I wanted to show the game music!

[Click'd]

Sold!

[eri0o]

Hello!

Small update here, showing the process an idea becomes a sketch, mock-up and gets coded inside the game, the idea here being the game menu as a part of the game itself.

Also, in YouTube, you need at least 100 subscribers to get a pretty url that's easy to type for the channel, so please subscribe to our channel!

[shaun9991]

This is looking great, nice work!

[rongel]

Looks great, the background in the video is very atmospheric too. Good luck with the project!

[Pilchard]

Just caught up on this thread and saw the videos. I love the backgrounds we've seen so far, and that menu system is really neat. Keep it up!

[Gurok]

That video was really entertaining, eri0! Did I hear you right? Did you say middle click to bring up the phone UI? I'd suggest an alternate way to bring up the menu. Maybe Tab or Esc, or just something you can click on. It was really interesting hearing you talk about the design process. It's great that you can collaborate so openly on design. The passion for your project really shines through and I hope you can keep it up!

[LimboJimbo84]

I love the art style combined with the music, really works well! Can't wait to get my hands on this, good luck with development!

[ricardojuchem]

I began to work on the character portraits. Please note that they are still WIP.

After some tests painting on higher resolution, with pen pressure and lots of colors, I decide to paint them on low resolution [about 120x120 area per character].
I think that a cleaner look with less colours works better with the game overall style. I hope you like it.

Cheers!

[BunnyDeFluff]

That estimated release date together with those screenshots tell me this game is actually going to happen. Keep it up op.

[Blondbraid]

I think the character portraits look great!

[ricardojuchem]

That estimated release date together with those screenshots tell me this game is actually going to happen. Keep it up op.

We are working hard to keep it up. Thanks for the support.

I think the character portraits look great!

Thanks! I'm really enjoying work on them.

Cheers.

[Hobo]

I'm glad you decided to go with the low-res portraits, fits better with the rest of the game, at least in my opinion.

[selmiak]

These characters look pretty good and pretty pretty, I like'em
You could add some more subtle highlight light from behind or from the sides like in your forum avatar. It should look pretty cool when you make this in one color, leave on a new layer and add this light on top of the portrait within AGS and change the color of the light (by code or by changing the color in the paintproggy and importing lots of files into AGS) according to the location the characters are and how the lighting happenes in that scene.

[ricardojuchem]

I'm glad you decided to go with the low-res portraits, fits better with the rest of the game, at least in my opinion.

Thanks for the advice

These characters look pretty good and pretty pretty, I like'em
You could add some more subtle highlight light from behind or from the sides like in your forum avatar. It should look pretty cool when you make this in one color, leave on a new layer and add this light on top of the portrait within AGS and change the color of the light (by code or by changing the color in the paintproggy and importing lots of files into AGS) according to the location the characters are and how the lighting happenes in that scene.

I'm glad that you liked. We are planning to make rim lights / color correction according to the room lighting. It's like you took a look inside of our brains.

[eri0o]

Gameplay Video (with comments)
Warning: the video contains the first 7 minutes of gameplay, if you want to be in without having any idea on the game, don't watch.

Hello everyone,

We decided it's a smart decision to share the gameplay of the game we are making and get feedback on what we are doing. Below are some questions, maybe someone has some ideas for one or all of them.

1 - I want to target the game for people who likes point and click adventures, but I want the game to be able to introduce to someone who has never played anything in the genre to it. Is this basic first level making sense?

2 - The action popus explained in the video, are they a good or bad idea? Are they a good idea but they need to be implemented differently? I came up with them because people playing the game couldn't grasp in the first ten minutes the right click and left click functions (look/interact). Jumping in mario is obvious because mario jumps!

3 - Are the dialogs too long or are they good in size?

4 - Suggestions on the basic UI? I am planning on re skin the BASS template and add some buttons for the phone menu.

5 - Any other comments, or ideas or encouragement is also appreciated!

Oh, and the video has subtitles, we noticed some voice was hard to understand but the world was too noisy to re-record the audio.

[LostTrainDude]

First of all this looks great! Congrats to the team!

1) I'd probably ask the players if they want it to be on or off when they click on "New game" rather than having the switch in the options menu. Other than that, what happens if I click on something when the game suggested me how to explore the environment"? In other words is the hotspot\objects interaction disabled in that stage?

2) I love stuff like the action popups a lot, but probably they break the immersion a little? I mean, I guess that if the game was set in some sort of virtual reality it would fit very nicely.
Still, I'd probably leave it just for stuff that usually is not that obvious, like "Kyle picked up the flashlight". Usually the inventory is what I get most bad feedback about, that's why I'm telling you

3) I don't really mind, but beware of "info dumps"! Try to spread the information about the character(s) in smaller bits and pieces through environmental storytelling and\or other well placed occasions I'm guilty of info dumps a lot, by the way

4) I like the UI as well as the character dialog closeups! The only thing I'm not sure about is the mouse icon, the one with the red and blue buttons, whenever you are hovering a hotspot. Is it context-based, meaning that it only shows what you can actually click (some hotspots may only be examined but not used, for instance)?

Keep up the good work, this is looking great!

[eri0o]

Hey @LostTrainDude

1) Great suggestion, I will ask the question when clicking New Game! Oh, the tutorial is a module, and each click type is disabled before their respective text is shown (there's and if before processClick that goes like if(TutorialModule.isRightClickDisabled()) return ). The idea was that the tutorial can be enabled in any level - the why will be explained in the Future.

2) Ok, ditched actionPopups, tried something different now, I thinks it breakes the immersion less:


3) Thanks, will reduce info dumps. And nice website! Bookmarked!

4) The mouse icons are context based. They surely will be needed for joystick support in the future (with different graphics) but I am not sure too on they being available for mouse. I guess I will ditch them for mouse later on.

Thanks for the feedback!

[eri0o]

Theme music updated!

Hey small update, just wanted to show the Title Screen with the new version of the theme music. If anyone has the habit of listening to music through YouTube on TV, you may want to listen to the following video.

If you haven't subscribed, please do, if we get to 100 subscribers we can have a proper channel URL.

[Click'd]

Sexy sexy glitches.

[Cassiebsg]

Looking good and sounding great!

I just have a little nitpick:

Spoiler

I notice the Quit is very near the lower edge, while you have lot's of empty space on the top.
It makes my "symmetry" side scream: "Center that text! Pull everything up a few pixels... "
But note that I like how the title fits nicely in the dark facade in between the windows... don't change that!

Maybe the easy solution would be to move the Continue-Quit block, center it under the "Flashback" text and pull it a bit up?

[close]

[eri0o]

Hey thanks ClickClickClick and Cassiebsg! About the nitpick, I agree with you, I did a small adjustment...

Spoiler

[close]

[eri0o]

We have a website!

futureflashbackgame.com

We are creating a website and also now we have an official twitter @futureflashbck. We hope to use those as ways to connect to people interested in the game so we can feel if there is interest! Please provide feedback on the website.

[Click'd]

Behold a future where a drug is capable of recreating vivid memories.

"I can think of a couple of works with that premise" was my first thought here. Sorry for the negativity.

Untangle the obsessive mind of an ex-surgeon, that after an accident, starts reliving the memories of a girl he never met.

I'd cut the ", that after an accident, starts" part.

Did I read this thread wrong? I thought your game was about "real" time travel.

[eri0o]

Hey @ClickClickClick, I am sorry, no real time travel, only memories. The description in the website actually is the one we opened this thread with. There is a feature list in the presskit, but I am not sure yet if we can do a better writing there on our intentions in the project

[ricardojuchem]

I just posted this on Twitter and I think that the people here maybe like it.

[imgzoom]http://futureflashbackgame.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/steps-small.png[/imgzoom]

Steps that I usually do when I make a pixel art background:

1 - Simple Wireframe
2 - Adding local colors
3 - Creating the objects
4 - Lighting and color correction

[Fitz]

Neat! Loving all the magenta and indigo. A very useful lesson, too, for someone who's not very good with backgrounds.

[KyriakosCH]

Very cool

[eri0o]

Hey we added lots of links to the homepage of the project, so I will add them here if you haven't checked! Social Networks!

Blog | YouTube Channel | Facebook Page | Twitter @futureflashbck | cartrdge | presskit() | indieDB

On the blog, I recently posted on development (with some help from Gurok):

Ship of Theseus Development

We are taking a top-down approach for Future Flashback. We wrote a story, and telling it in the adventure genre felt natural. When looking for tools, I eventually found Adventure Game Studio. It has all the ready-to-use objects that I like from RPG Maker, but for adventure games. It's also powerful enough to let you ditch any ready-made objects so that you can create your own, with a very easy to use scripting language.

You can use the default adventure elements to prototype the story and the environment, then take your time refining the gameplay and replacing default objects and methods with what works best for the game. It works really great with pixel graphics too, which is a plus since it's the aesthetic that we are going for. While I didn't know Adventure Game Studio or its scripting language a year ago, it has a friendly learning curve that means the hardest part is often deciding what design works best instead of what can I code.

This is my favorite development strategy, the "ship of Theseus strategy" (as coined by eri0o), where I have a good set of defaults for creating and I can replace each part at my own pace. New parts can be different and enable me to move forward, while the old parts provide a safety net that, if something is too hard to replace, I can leave as-is and work around. This approach gives me a predictable development path where I know I can advance if only a little each day.

The predictable pace of development gives me the tranquillity to explore and iterate on the design, while being able throw ideas (and code) away because I know they are easy to explore. Since I am not the only person using the tool, I also have access to ready-made code that helps me iterate faster until I'm ready to cut the unneeded parts or polish them to fit our vision for the game.

Link to this post...

[ricardojuchem]

We are still working hard on the game, so hard that sometimes we forgot to share new stuff.

Here are some new backgrounds.

Cheers!

[imgzoom]http://futureflashbackgame.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/DO6egMRWAAAqoKP.jpg[/imgzoom]

[imgzoom]http://futureflashbackgame.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/bg_gif.gif[/imgzoom]

[Lasca]

This all looks super great! Looking forward to playing.

[eri0o]

Thanks Lasca!



We are working hard to make this a good game! I hope in 2018 I can provide more updates here in the thread!

[CaptainD]

This is looking really nice - keep up the good work!

[eri0o]

More Screenshots!

Hello!

Small update! Adding some more screenshots below!





(last one is kind of a small error on player.ChangeRoom ... )

You can see some more screenshots on the game blog or @futureflashbck on Twitter!

We have been testing a slightly change in the game interface that will hopefully make the game better.

[HanaIndiana]

Yay screenshots! I'm really enjoying the pixel art.

[Cassiebsg]

And error!? And I thought you had figured out the best most comfortable bed of all times! I was so looking forward to to the future... a levitation bed.

Loving the art and the mood. Keep up the good work.

[Blondbraid]

Wow, the new screenshots look great!

[JSH]

Looks amazing, love me some cyberpunk Will definitely keep an eye on this!

[TripTilt]

This is totally on my watch list!

[FireFlower]

Looks really nice!

[Privateer Puddin']

You really should post a new screenshot

[horusr]

I heard you have some new screenshots to show! Sorry that you can't show.

[_InCreator_]

Love the look!

Only thing I a bit dislike is so huge empty space between dialog lines.

[eri0o]

One more screenshot, art streaming and Future Flashback in a game event!

Whoa! Thanks HanaIndiana, Blondbraid, Privateer Puddin' and horusr We will try to keep up with more screenshots (look down in this post for one more! More to come reaaaally soon)!
Cassiebsg, maybe it's the future ! JSH, ToxicTuba, FireFlower, thank you, we will try to update here more!  Noted your observation too _InCreator_!

- . - . -

Ricardo Juchem streamed his art for a background from Future Flashback here on Twitch!


Here it is in game!

- . - . -

Also, in a local event here in Brazil we took our game for people to play! It was very cool!


Read more on how it went on our blog...

- . - . -

We also created a game poster! Click on the image below to follow and download it from our blog!

[eri0o]

Hey guys!

We went to an event here in Rio de Janeiro, called Geek & Game Rio Festival and we had a stand to present Future Flashback, where people were able to play it! It was a great - although exhausting - experience, and we wrote about it on our blog. For the game itself, it was like a marathon of playtesting where we could observe players interacting with the game, and listen to what they had to say. We saw many father-daughter, mother-son, couples, and other pair thoroughly excited by the game and it was really cool seeing they play, people lining up, asking things! Really rich experience!

You can read more on our blog... Share our post on Twitter or Facebook !

[Cassiebsg]

Cool, sounds like you had a blast, learned a lot and got people exited about your game!

[eri0o]

Hey maybe you guys already read in the blog post...



but in case you didn't... Just passing to say we are going to AdventureX! I am both excited and terrified!

If you happen to be around please go to our table meet us and play our game.

[sawyer]

Man, this game looks very nice. You guys and your creations never cease to amaze me. Your inspiration and the process of being mentally stimulated to make this is another very looking foward to play game. Thanks! You have made this old man excited.

[eri0o]

Thanks sawyer! Hopefully you will be able to play it on next year!



New Blog post on taking Future Flashback to AdventureX 2018...

Now I wrote there just a little bit of the experience and the games and all that. One of the most amazing parts was actually being able to meet in person many of the people here in the forum, for which I am very grateful. Some people I didn't get who was when I was there, and only figure out once I came back home. I like very much this forum, but been able to meet in person is very much incredible.

I now need to keep working on my game so that everyone is able to play it on full one day.

Thanks everyone for being awesome people!

[eri0o]

Just a screenshot saturday update. Making a small library here. 

[CaptainD]

AAAAUUURRRGGHHH!!!!!!!  All those opening and closing things!  The blinking screen!  The scrolling screen!  The circling thingy!  It's a glorious sensory overload!

For a shorter way of saying the above - nice job mate!

[eri0o]

Thank you so much @CaptainD ! Because you liked it, I added this screenshot to the blog post body linked below... 



2018 Recap

Hey everyone! 2018 was an amazing year!

The coolest thing for me was that I finally met many wonderful people from this community in person!

I also was able to play many great games developed by the community here and on the Discord AGS Channel.

I hope 2019 is a good year for narrative games! I wrote a recap of what happened in 2018 and added some bonus content that you guys may or may not find interesting! 

Read more on the blog...

[eri0o]

Poll link | Original Twitter Post



Hey, we are trying to figure out which image to use for Steam Capsule. Any feedback is appreciated!

You can refer to the image using column numbers, from left to right, 1 to 4. 

We also have a poll here , if you just want to vote.

Thank you!

[Click'd]

The blurry one.

[Dualnames]

Somewhere between blurry one and bottom right

[dactylopus]

I like #2.

[sawyer]

Looks really nice.

[eri0o]

During April we updated the blog theme and did some fixes on the website.

We posted about here: A Small update of themes. Below I am adding links to two music videos for people who didn't saw those before.

I am currently writing a new post with some more updates. 

[Jojo_the_monkey]

Nice!! I like the futuristic "Monkey Island" vibe on the second one. Are you planning to release a demo as well?

[eri0o]

@Jojo_the_monkey I am currently not planning for a demo. I am building one, but I think in the end it will be part of the game itself and just it.

Below is an additional screenshot from the game to remind you guys we are still alive! 

[CaptainD]

Love that screenshot!

[Olleh19]

How is this project coming along, is it following the schedule release? I'm looking for a new retro/cyberpunkish adventure game to play. 

[sawyer]

QT4 

[Giacomo]

Man, this is so cool, I love your style!

Let me also thank you for your activity in the forum,
it helped me a lot.

[eri0o]

Thanks!

It's been a bit of a slow development, I had lots of things in mind and ended up redoing some stuff a lot of times the more I learned things around... I am in a bit of small hell of forever adding texts, adjusting dialogs and making sure the scenes and actions are working in a cool way. I reaaaaally want to do a update here... I think I will foccus into doing some stuff and figuring something from development to pick and show here.

[Darth Mandarb]

Giacomo - please review the forum rules before digging up any more old threads, thanks!

eri0o - glad to know you're still workin' on it. Would you like me to lock this thread until you're ready to post an update? The damage is done (it being dug-up) so if you want to leave it open I'll leave it up to you.

[eri0o]

I am still working, I will try to add some fun gifs later - all the story has been written, and the complete draft of game dialogs is done too. Lesson is, do not make gigantic game as first project. _{(there's no need to lock)}

[Pogwizd]

The damage might have been done but it's good to know that the project is still alive, though. I myself have been waiting for some updates on the development. I keep fingers crossed for you eri0o.

Is the game going to be that big?

[Giacomo]

I'm sorry Darth Mandarb, the next time I will send a PM.

[TheVolumeRemote]

Love your style mate, been excited for this one for a while!

[sawyer]

Yet another one waiting for Q4 2022.....ok......

[Darth Mandarb]

Sawyer, stop digging up threads.

This is the second time already in THIS SAME THREAD and more than 8 times in the past I've asked you to stop doing this. Now I'm telling you. Follow the rules, or be banned.