AdventureX is an event in London, with talks from narrative game developers and where in development narrative games are presented. I and Ricardo went there to showcase Future Flashback, as one of the 20 games in the exhibition.
The section of the game we brought played like this:
- a small not-a-tutorial level that introduces the player on how to walk, how to interact with the environment, how to use the inventory and how to use another support interface;
- in a more complex environment, the same basic questions are asked to the player, now with a bit more context on the game story;
- now it’s a room that involves an actual puzzle, which the player interacts using the previously known concepts;
- an interactable cutscene leads to the demo game credits.
The play session was around 20 minutes. We hit something good somewhere, we had two computers available for people to play and the seats were always taken. People really liked the game, the graphics, and the music – I remember one person reluctant to leave the title screen because of how much he liked the title music. Some people after playing, discussed the story, showing attention to a lot of the details we placed, and really wanting to speculate on the things we left blank and how the rest of the game would play out.
I noticed the older players really wanted to double click to run, but the game expected to click and hold to run, so this is a detail we need to accommodate for.
It was great too to meet other developers, which had amazing projects going on. We were next to the guys from Lake, which is a game you play as a mail delivery person in a peaceful town with Firewatch feels; Luna, a game with beautiful hand drawn graphics where you walk around interpreting the logic behind the levels to solve puzzles; Talesinger, a game in celt era where you use crafting instead of combat to advance the narrative. Lord Winklebottom Investigates and Over The Alps were also in the same room!
In the next room, it was where I played Gibbous, A Cthulhu Adventure, which is a beautiful point and click with fluid animation that reminds me of Disney old cartoons, made by the amazingly talented Stuck In The Attic team, this one is going to release really soon and you should most definitely check it out! Many other games were there too! I also found time to play Purgatory on Joel Mayer’s backpack computer, which plays very nice!
The event was opened with a talk from Dave Gilbert, with precious insights for anyone working on a narrative game. Meeting the developers on the event to talk, and later in the pub, drink, was really good, learned a little on how they were brought to do game development, made me admire all of them much more.
If you are interested in the full list of the games on the event or want to check the recorded talks, the AdventureX website is where you want to go. A member from the Adventure-Treff forums played our game in the event and made a forum post there, thank you! Jump Dash Roll wrote about our game in an AdventureX write up too! Our game also appeared on Jupiter Hadley video here.
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