🌟 Introduction

In 1992, Flashback revolutionized action gaming and gained legendary status, ranking among the 100 best video games in history.

Today, Paul Cuisset, the creator of the original game, invites you to play again as Conrad B. Hart, a young agent of the GBI (Galactic Bureau of Investigation). In the 22nd century, peace across the United Worlds extends throughout the Solar System, but this tranquility is threatened by the Morph invasion led by the fearsome General Lazarus. In search of his lifelong friend Ian, and with the help of a few allies including A.I.S.H.A., his iconic AI-powered weapon, Conrad dives into a heart-pounding adventure full of twists, turns and revelations.

A gripping, fluid and intricate platform shooter, with exploration, puzzle solving and, of course, adventure.

I had the chance to participate in the production of Patch 3 after the game's launch on Steam. The patch was a major rework, fixing many issues, bugs and features that were blocking the fun of the game.

👾 Gameplay

Flashback 2 is mostly a shooter and platformer. The player explores different areas, buildings and regions, collects key story objects, and of course fights enemies to progress.

Several exotic gameplay elements were added, like mecha fights, bike driving and electrical circuit hacking. These were designed to introduce new mechanics and give players more to learn, creating challenge and satisfaction through discovery.

There are also many narrative elements, cutscenes and dialogues that build the lore and storyline, with a wide range of characters.

📃 What I've realized on the project

• Playing the game

  This was probably the first and easiest task. When I joined the project, my main mission was to play the game with a fresh perspective, knowing nothing about the story, universe or gameplay.

  The Lead Game Designer asked me to write a short essay explaining what I understood about the game, its story and characters. I had to describe what I liked and disliked, what I understood and misunderstood, and what felt too much or was missing.

  The things I liked were easy to identify — the new universe, learning new mechanics and features, and discovering the characters and lore.

  As for the things I disliked or didn’t fully understand, it was more about how some character relationships were introduced but not developed. For example, Conrad and Helen have a romance, but it only lasts about 3 minutes in the whole game, which felt disappointing.

  I was also let down by some mechanics being used only once. They could have been great if reused, like the mecha fights or hacking sequences in the early game (almost just in the tutorial city).

  In the end, my Lead was really happy and surprised by my essay. He even said he had forgotten the meaning of some parts I mentioned. Sadly, we didn’t have time to reuse those mechanics elsewhere, but at least the essay was done.

• Redaction of the dev log

  My second task was more straightforward. After finishing the game, I watched footage and gameplay from the old version (the one published before the rework).

  In a big Google Doc, I created a recap of all the new features and changes between the released version and the one we were working on. I included pros and cons of the current version and compared them to the new one, which of course had only improvements.

  Once the recap was done, I created a PowerPoint presentation for the publishers and marketing team, showcasing all the new features, progress, changes and fixes included in Patch 3.

  This was also a very interesting task, as it was the first time I had to make documents that would be seen by senior people in the studio.

📌 Lessons Learned

⚡ Quick infos