Title: Supposedly Wonderful Future
Platform: PC
Developer: Dmitry Zagumennov
Publisher: Dmitry Zagumennov
Release date: April 18, 2018
Price: $10/£7
TL;DR: A point and click adventure that explores numerous “what if” scenarios in the year 2048.
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Supposedly Wonderful Future is a text-heavy game that alternates between a point-and-click adventure and narrative RPG. The premise focuses on a young man named Michael, who is chosen by a corporation from the future to travel to the year 2048. By doing so, he will be able to bypass his death—but only if he completes some tasks for the organization first.

Herein lies my first gripe about the game: I understand that hooking the audience is critical, especially in dialogue-heavy games, but the beginning of Supposedly Wonderful Future seems to move at lightspeed. One minute Michael is reminiscing about his business, the next he’s transported to the future to perform errands for the mysterious LIFE+ corporation. Regardless of the circumstances, I feel like it should take a little bit more convincing before someone is willing to trust a time-traveling stranger.

After being dropped unceremoniously into the year 2048, the protagonist must complete a series of tasks for LIFE+, and the real adventure begins. The jobs range from comedic, to disappointing, to downright dark. Without giving too much away, I will say that I made some pretty horrifying choices right off the bat. Afterall, being in the future doesn’t mean that everything is sunshine and rainbows. Players will have to deal with euthanasia, religion, and other heavy-hitting topics.

Putting the story aside, the gameplay itself is pretty straightforward. You read through large chunks of text, ask questions, make decisions, and explore your surroundings with simple point-and-click controls. The game is pretty text-heavy, which occasionally made me feel like I was drowning in information as it tended to frontload details rather than letting you explore topics by playing the game. The hefty chunks of text aren’t helped by the animations—or lack thereof, with exploration surmounting to watching the same animation over and over again until a quest is complete.

While the game has a pretty cool premise (I’m a sucker for sci-fi in general, and who doesn’t love some good time travel?) there’s some clunky mechanics in the game that kept me from really enjoying the experience. If you’re a hardcore visual novel fan, you might be able to look past these nuances. For me, however, it was difficult to feel fully immersed when I kept having to slog through blocks of text.

The game itself is pretty short; you could easily beat Supposedly Wonderful Future in a day if you breeze through the dialogue. Despite there being different options to choose from in the story, I’m not sure if it has enough replay value for me to consider going through it more than once. Overall, it’s hard for me to recommend the game in its current state. I believe it would have a lot more potential if the game broke up its text more or if it abandoned the point-and-click elements altogether to focus full on its narrative style.

That being said, considering that Supposedly Wonderful Future was developed and published by a team of one person with zero budget whatsoever is pretty impressive. Personally, I’ve never worked in game development, but I can fully appreciate the amount of time and energy that must have gone into creating a Supposedly Wonderful Future and putting it out there for the world to see. I’m also very fond of using video games as a medium for storytelling, so if nothing else I’m glad to see more developers creating games that are solely focused on its characters and story.

The Good

  • Uses interactive storytelling for a narrative experience
  • Explores futuristic themes of humans, society, and technology
  • Forces you to make tough choices in unfamiliar territory

The Bad

  • Clunky animations lead to repetitive actions
  • Too much text can be difficult to read through at times
  • The overall story has pacing issues and lacks believability

Family Focus

Rated: Not yet rated; has some dark themes, so keep it away from young kids.

Disclaimer: This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.