Video Game / Future Fragments

Left to Right: Faye, Talia, Vie

An action-platformer-RPG hybrid H-Game by the trio HentaiWriter, TriangulatePixels, and FrougeDev.

In the year 1000, a magical kingdom faces possible defeat in a war. Its king decides to send his two most powerful mages, Talia and Faye, to the distant year 3000 to retrieve a powerful suit of armor that can turn the tide in this war: the Future Fragments. However, Faye and Talia both have their own motives for getting the suit, and they're entirely separate from saving the kingdom...

The first demos of the game were released in 2015. The game initially launched on Steam and Itch.io on February 23, 2024, but is currently in an incomplete state in regards to the story content of the last two levels; the missing content is being patched in by the developers. Future planned content includes a level editor, a safe for work mode, and a speedrun mode.

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This game provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob:
  • Characters can range from normal sounding names like Talia or Faye, to completely foreign, abstract sounding names like "Sopi Glocsyth".
  • A lot of the abstract sounding names in the game are a case of Significant Anagram; for example, "Sopi Glocsyth" is an anagram for "Psychologist", which is the character's role in the databank that they're featured in.
• Ambiguously Bi: The widowed Vie uses pet names around Talia and calls her "cutie" in what is obviously an affectionate manner, though HentaiWriter has confirmed that Vie only has eyes for her husband.
• And I Must Scream: The ADMN Spawner is well aware of what the WORM is doing to it and expresses gratitude to Talia for putting it out of its misery, knowing the WORM can never abuse it again.
• Anal Probing: In a way. The Celodst are just really obsessed with human women—and by extension, Talia. This is partly due to an accident in the facility that caused all of their media devices to be permanently tuned to Earth's "underground networks". See the Mars Needs Women example below.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The WORM keeps close tabs on everyone under its employ (95% of the planet) on the off-chance they break laws or spread sedition. This is possible due to a device implanted in the heads of everyone cloned at WORM facilities. Citizens can remove it, but doing so forces a respawn, bringing it back into their heads anyways, so it's pointless to do so.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: The skin of the Celodst freezes into long beard-like appendages. They eat lava, and their internal temperatures are absurdly high—but their skin is ice-cold. How much of their biology is actually biological is undetermined though, as they're able to fashion various appendages using their superior technology wherever and however they want.
• Blob Monster: The ADMN Spawner, a gigantic pile of gelatinous flesh, full of fluid that's harvested by the WORM to amplify the vascular and autonomic nervous systems of their soldiers.
• Bondage Is Bad: The Celodst on Earth, owing to their porn-addiction, also have a rather disturbing proclivity for binding their "test subjects".
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: Enforced by the WORM. The WORM tries to maximize efficiency out of the population, and finds courtship a distraction from self-improvement. As a result, men and women under the WORM live and work in separated areas. Any WORM member that has sex with anyone else has their Save File severed, preventing them from respawning, and they're then exiled to the Expanses.
  • Somewhat averted as sex isn't banned as a whole, just specifically between people. WORM members have access to "gratters" (short for Gratification Devices); advanced sex machines for them to vent their urges on. One early game databank is an advert for someone to take direct control of a person's gratter because it's still technically legal under WORM regulations.
• Chekhov's Gun: Multiple objects, events, and characters from the earliest areas of the game end up getting entirely new context to them in the later portions of the game that changes the perception of events up until that point.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: Talia's dialogue and actions in the game affect not just her personality, but also her relationship with Faye, and some of her powerup abilities as well. Talia's highest Ideal at game's end, combined with her Sexuality rating, are what determine the game's ending on a "True Ending" run.
• Convection Shmonvection: The Volcanic Mines takes place in a WORM facility deep in a volcano, with lava everywhere. Justified by all accounts: the lava has been tampered with to ensure that Berserkers don't roam freely; Talia's magical aura and the WORM Grunts' armor protect them from the environment; and the Gliders, Berserkers, and Scrapers have heat tolerance, thanks to the influence of the ADMN Spawner blobs within them.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Inhabitants of the year 3000 have... strange ideas about what traditional pizza is made with, or even where it's from. Subverted in that people in the future are synthetic/flesh hybrids, and most carbon-based life has died out; as such, these humans live on a silicon-based diet, not a carbon-based one. Rocks and crystals are their main fare.
• Cyanide Pill: Talia and Faye both have a magical earring that serves as this; once they've ran out of mana and are unable to fight any further, they're left helpless. "Restarting" from your last save is just Talia swallowing the earring to cause instantaneous disintegration, allowing them to respawn at the last Save Pad she stepped upon.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Vie starts off all business with a penchant for smoke and mirrors up until the Gratification Factory, at which point she gets much much more cheery and playful. HentaiWriter has said there's a reason for this that will be covered once the post-launch rewrites of the Uncharted Wildwoods are in the game.
• Deletion as Punishment: This is a literal aspect within the game's universe, but it doesn't affect the player's actual save file. WORM who break the rules severely enough get their Save File "severed" and are exiled from WORM society, preventing them from ever respawning again.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Talia's outfit—a tight crop-top and leather pants with a high-riding thong and a trenchcoat—probably wouldn't have been her first choice, but the King has told her it helps magical convection per design.
• Energy Weapon: The WORM's futuristic weaponry; so far, their Grunts are equipped with standard (?) issue shotguns and ice-shooting rifles. The Celodst, however, have troops capable of firing lasers from their mouths.
• Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • The WORM are effectively immortal thanks to the Save Pads. However, "Closure Syndrome", a biological/synth hybrid virus, has been installed on a growing number of Save Pads throughout the world. Anyone respawning on these particular Save Pads will have their Save File corrupted, causing them to permanently have various physical and mental mutations and abnormalities. Since WORM culture considers severing your own Save File an unacceptable behavior, they're forced to become more and more distorted with each respawn.
  • Seeber sacrificed his life in the process of inflicting something far, far worse on the WORM than Closure Syndrome though...
• Fun with Acronyms: The WORM, which stands for World Organization for the Regulation of Masses. Also ADMN Fluid, which stands for Augmented Dorsal Motor Nuclei Fluid, and also conveniently (given the appearance of people doped up with this fluid) sounds like you're saying "A Demon" if said quickly.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Played straight with the Mainframe Computer. Subverted a bit in that he WANTS you to kill him, but his programming forces him to make things hard for you.
• Hive Mind: The Spiderbots, but also potentially every Wildwoods inhabitant also, especially The Depth enemies.
• Hot as Hell: Talia, who turns into the very image of a succubus when exposed to the ADMN Spawner's essence. She's not turned into a literal demon, though.
• Human Weapon: The WORM infuses some humans with ADMN Fluid in a bid to create these. "Gliders" would constitute a "success", considering their flight, resilience, and amplified IQ. "Berserkers" would be failures, boasting plenty of strength but an unrestrained nature that makes them all but a liability. "Scrapers" are only helpful in how numerous they are.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: The Mainframe to the Gratification Factory would self-destruct and end its misery. But, its own self-preservation code not only prevents it from doing so and forces it to resist Talia's efforts, even as he encourages her. The same code forces him to punish Talia should she fail.
• Immodest Orgasm: All three of the game's leading ladies.
• Interface Screw: During the battle against Vie stepping on any of the trap switches in the room will hit you with one form of this or another, making avoiding the otherwise manageable attacks a nightmare.
• It Can Think: The ADMN spawner is quite sapient but Talia can only communicate with it by touching it which can only happen when it catches her or in its dying moments.
• Lightning Bruiser: Berserkers are big and can move when they charge. They also hit Talia hard enough to instantly stun her, dealing quite a bit of damage in the process.
• Mars Needs Women: After being stuck on Earth for so long, and having gotten addicted to underground porn streams, the Celodst are utterly obsessed with human intercourse—and, as an extension, human women. The WORM takes advantage of this by sending them "test subjects".
• Meaningful Name: The "Celodst", one of the alien races in Future Fragments, is an anagram of "coldest"—fitting, given their icy environment and cold skin. A few other characters have names that are anagrams of their personalities or jobs as well.
  • Invoked with the game itself; Future Fragments alludes to not just the futuristic objects Talia collects, but also the many possible paths presented before her as she makes her way through levels and meets people from the future.
• Mook Maker: The ADMN Spawner can shoot out tiny blobs of itself to trap Talia.
• Multiple Endings: How distinctly different these will be remain to be seen, but the ending is affected by both Talia's personality traits and her relationship with Faye.
• Musical Spoiler: The game is full of these, due to very frequent use of musical callbacks and usage of dynamic music (see "Variable Mix" below).
• Only One Save File: To force the player to deal with the consequences of their choices, on a first run through the game, they're only given one save file. Future runs of the game, after they've beaten the True Final Boss, extend the number of available save slots to ten.
• Pamphlet Shelf: Each level has a number of databanks that expands on the universe of the year 3000. These can either shed insight into life with the WORM, Rebel plans, or just random citizens in society. Finding all of the Gold Databanks along with all of the Future Fragments is the only way to unlock the best ending.
• Pet the Dog: Talia has many opportunities to be altruistic to either WORM forces or Rebel sympathizers; doing so will usually get her positive Ideal points in Kindness, Pacifism, Optimism, or Justice. Usually.
• Playful Hacker: Invoked with Vie, a resistance fighter who can hack into technology by transmitting herself into the network. She's also bubbly and optimistic to a fault: she has no idea when she's being told "no".
• Power-Up: There are a number of items Talia can acquire that can increase her abilities. There's also five negative powerups specifically for making the game harder. She gets new abilities from defeating bosses, as well.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Invoked with Talia and Faye. Talia is methodical, stoic, and works by her own strict code of ethics, regardless of whether it hurts or benefits her. Faye is much more impulsive and aggressive, and only does things that generally help her, regardless of the cost to others.
• Rock Beats Laser: The WORM was thoroughly trounced by the small group of Celodst forces and their clubs and spears. Averted, however, as the Celodst have technology that's far more advanced than anything the WORM employs. It just looks like clubs and spears. If a Celodst Ancient ever used their full power, they'd crack the planet's crust with a single swing.
• Robo Cam: How the Mainframe Computer sees Talia.
• Selective Gravity: The Electric Level features switches that can invert gravity; many puzzles and enemies are designed to take advantage of this.
• Shout-Out:
  • Vie's coat was inspired by Axel's coat.
  • The overwhelming majority of named NPC characters are actually Patreon backers who got their names/brief character descriptions in the game that they'd requested.
  • Patreon backers who aren't NPCs are depicted on a memorial wall for the "Decline of 2999" that Talia can find in each of the first four levels. Vie does not have kind things to say about them as the Decline was the greatest achievement of her husband Seeber, but Talia is allowed to formulate her own opinion of them in the moment. However, Vie—or anyone for that matter—doesn't know what Seeber did that day, only that the people on the wall were erased without a trace, never to be seen again.
  • A secret area in the last level, The End, references a secret ending in Contra: Hard Corps as well as a scene from Star Trek: Voyager, while giving a nod to the game's programmer, FrougeDev.
  • Some of the various flavors of interface screw Talia has to struggle with during the fight against Vie are a homage to Eternal Darkness.
• Schizo Tech: The main aesthetic of the Celodst. Their hyper-advanced weapons resemble clubs and spears, and they live in cloth tents with dish antennas attatched.
• Sudden Game Interface: The Mainframe Computer brings one up as he punishes Talia. He even lampshades the fourth-wall breaking, to Talia's confusion.
• Super-Soldier: All of future humanity, from the perspective of Talia and Faye. The average human in the year 3000 is many times stronger than the people of their era.
• Technical Pacifist: The Celodst are averse to killing, which is why they were so ready to sign a peace treaty with the WORM (who were all too happy for an opportunity to study their weaponry). Their primitive-looking weapons are more than enough to destroy the Earth several times over, however, and their treaty with the WORM requires them to, ironically, attack any intruders with (heavily reduced) force—though depending on who it is, it might be for different reasons.
  • Talia also counts for this; numerous times she states how she personally refuses to attack anyone who hasn't attacked her first.
    • The player's choices can cause her to eventually change her mind.
• The Internet Is for Porn: The Encampments (as well as opportunistic-types) maintain a black market for adult-rated works in the year 3000, in response to the WORM's prohibition of all things sexual.
• The Stoic: Talia is quite no-nonsense.
• True Final Boss: The game has one of these, only accessible once you've collected every Fragment and Gold Databank in the game.
• Variable Mix: Depending on the action occurring on-screen, Talia's health, or the presence of enemies or Future Fragments, the background music will change to reflect it.
• World of Buxom: Talia, Faye and Vie are all notably well-developed. In-game databanks also note that all other women are quite busty.
• You Can't Go Home Again: The Celodst generally use Earth as a rest stop on their travels. Some of them are put on extended duty on Earth as security detail however, and over time, their exposure to the underground media network changes them so much that their former homeworld becomes disgusted with their porn-addiction and obsession with human sex. These "tainted" Celdost are able to and go elsewhere, but due to their addiction, most choose to stay on Earth.

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