We have now been on Steam Early Access for about two months, and we've gotten a number of valuable pieces of feedback that have given us a solid idea of what is possible and necessary to bring the game to a final release. We have been meeting extensively and organizing to make sure that we have a solid plan. I wanted to share with everyone what we're loosely expecting and, by extension, what you should expect from the remainder of Early Access!

When will the game be out of Early Access?

We're currently estimating that the game has 3-5 months of Early Access remaining. The holidays are a bad time to release indie games, so even if we were finished with development, it would likely be a good idea to wait until January/February. This is our current target for the "final" Reflections.

How long will the game be?

The current game is roughly in the ballpark of 1 hour long. We're pushing to make the final version of the game roughly 3 hours in length for a single playthrough, with the same expectation of diverse replay options as before.

Is the update schedule going to change?

Yes. We're looking to drill into some substantial new features and content, so we are going to need a little more time for each update. The game has gotten a lot of updates but has been missing deeper polish, so we're going to be taking more time between versions. We're expecting to switch to a 4-6 week turnaround for major content updates moving forward.

What are the upcoming features/Additions?

Totally redone conversation system, allowing for the player to selection dialogue options and engage in conversation.
Adding a level in the dorm room in college.
Integrating an apartment section as a key portion of Act 2, with the option to pick your preferred apartment type.
Splitting Act 3 into Act 3 and Act 4, allowing for another segment of play prior to the final conclusion.
Heavy treatment of the story, including rewriting all of the lines and adding in sub-plots regarding your character's family.
Intrigue and conflict plot lines involving both your partner and crush.
Improving the grab mechanic so that it is more reliable and doesn't pop objects out of view as often.
Voicing and animating characters. We're still determining how full this will be, but will certainly include emotes and "call outs" during significant conversations.
Improvement of the follow AI and animal AI behavior in Act 2. They are currently way too prone to error.
Full autosave system, allowing players to stop mid-session and resume where they left off.
Better "zapping" system, which brings more objects and interactions from act 1 to act 2, and beyond.
A pet character is in development.
Ongoing improvement of gameplay interactions and feedback in all levels
Integrating proper sound effects for every object and interactable in-game, as well as better ambient sound effects.
Ability to run with objects, as well as investigating an elegant way to allow players to open doors while carrying objects. We're trying to figure out a way to do this that isn't terribly intrusive or convoluted, while still keeping things simple.
Full hospital ending sequence in Act 4 that characterizes your life and plays through an interactive ending sequence.

Obviously, this is a sizable list, which is the reason for the extension in development time. We appreciate your patience and feel confident that Reflections will start improving quickly.

Thank You

We can't thank you enough for purchasing Reflections in Early Access. Your feedback and support have been invaluable to us, and have genuinely helped improve the game to date. This game has always been somewhat experimental, and some answers to hard questions have been provided by both your feedback and our ability to collect data and watch your playthroughs online. Early Access is a strange beast, particularly for a narrative exploration game. Our goal is to build a game that can connect with a large number of people in a way that not many games have, and we appreciate you helping us get closer to that every day. We look forward to showing you our next version soon!

[ 2015-09-16 06:25:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Reflections

Broken Window Studios Developer

Broken Window Studios Publisher

2015-06-26 Release

Indie Singleplayer EA Tags

Game News Posts: 34

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🎮 Full Controller Support

Mixed (28 reviews)

http://www.reflectionsgame.com/

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Keyboard & mouse: 1

Gamepad support: 1

Standing: 1

Seated: 1

Public Linux Depots:

Reflections Linux [1.81 G]

What is Reflections?

Reflections is a real-world adventure game where every action you take has meaningful consequences that radically shape the experience. The game takes a new approach to story, where everything you do can be woven into a narrative that drastically changes, thanks to our Storyteller engine. Each action you take is punctuated by flushing the black and white environment with color, illustrating your progress and providing clues to what your future might hold.

You create the story - The powerful Storyteller engine watches everything you do and changes the experience to suit.
Three Acts - Experience various moments in your life which differ radically based on what you choose to do.
Dynamic progression - time passes as you play, changing the opportunites and events that unfold
Full environment interactivity - If you want to do it, you probably can. Reflections isn't about sitting and watching. Everything has its use.
AI that responds to you - Multiple characters and creatures to build relationships with, relationships that may last your whole life
Beautiful environments - stark black and white environments that slowly get filled with color by your actions
Fully supports the Oculus Rift

The Setting

In Reflections, you are getting ready to leave home and start your life as an adult. You have to put things in order and get ready to leave by the end of the day. To do so, you can tidy up your business, help build relationships, or just go exploring. From there, it's up to you; the entire course of the game is based on the actions you take.

About the Storyteller

Reflections uses a unique Storyteller engine, that allows anything that happens to feed into the narrative. Rather than picking story options, everything you do is part of the story. How you choose to spend your time matters; the Storyteller shapes your future out of everything, no matter how big or small. A complex system under the hood determines how actions affect your story, and makes hundreds of changes to accomodate. These changes can be as small as an item that reappears later in your life after it was used, or as big as an entirely new landscape to explore based on your larger choices. Our goal is to custom tailer an experience that you can relate to, which feels like something that you made happen.

Virtual Reality

Like everything Broken Window Studios develops, the game fully supports the use of the Oculus Rift. We're also looking into additional options for immersive controls, and will keep everyone updated as finalize our feature set.

Tobii EyeX Eye-Tracking Controller

Reflections also supports eye-tracking technology! With Tobii EyeX, you can use eye tracking to control object selection, extend your camera's field of view, and engage in more immersive character interactions that incorporate eye contact. Reflections deals with a lot of human-scale interactions, and we are glad to provide a new level of depth to those interactions by incorporating Tobii eye tracking.

For more information about the Tobii EyeX, please see http://www.tobii.com/xperience/

We are interested to know what you think of the Tobii integration and are looking to get your feedback during our Early Access period. Please let us know what you think!

MINIMAL SETUPOS: glibc 2.11 or newer
Processor: 1.80GHz ProcessorMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD or NVIDIA graphics with 512MB of VRAM or better
Storage: 2 GB available space

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