Backtrace: Mechanisms for Forgetting

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• Announcements·1 Sept 2026Official

  Backtrace Featured in Fall in Love Showcase 2026!

  We're super honored to be featured in yet another showcase! This time, it's showcase about love stories.This is a great time to tell you more about the romance in our game. The game's story grew from the idea of an obsessive love between two characters. Simra is a character who wants to spend forever with her loved one. But forever isn't possibles so this is a story of her trials and tribulations.This festival is the 2nd edition of the festival and it's hosted by Studio Élan. Check out their yuri games!Also check out the other games in the festival here:https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46245070/sale/FallinLoveFestival2026
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• Announcements·24 Aug 2026Official

  Backtrace featured in the Yuri Game Selection 2026!

  We're excited to announce that we got into our third Steam festival! We're very honored to be included in this festival. I'm especially thankful to my friend Roxie for submitting our game to the organizer! Thank you! :-)This festival is yuri themed! Yuri is the Japanese term for lesbian romance stories. We chose this as our genre label since our art style has an anime look to it.More specifically, our story is a josei yuri story, which means it's a yuri story that targets adult women. My dream is for josei yuri to become more popular! This game is my contribution to the genre. :-)Check out the other games in the festival here:
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• Community & Events·27 Jul 2026Official

  Backtrace featured in Monochropoly Festival!

  We were accepted into our second Steam festival! I feel so lucky that there just so happens to be a festival for black and white games!The inspiration for our color scheme comes both from manga and early macOS. I grew up voraciously reading manga so black and white art styles are my absolute favorite. On top of that, I love the look of old Macintosh computers, specifically System 1. System 1 has such a charming look, and I wanted to capture some of that in this game.Check out the other games in the festival too! :-Dhttps://store.steampowered.com/curator/46149935/sale/Monochropoly2026~ Aeris
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• Community & Events·13 Jul 2026Official

  Backtrace featured in the Nonbinary Coded Games Festival!

  We were accepted into our first Steam festival! \\o/ Nell (left), our deuteragonist, is agender! Agender means they don't identify with any gender identity. It's Nell's way of saying "no thanks" to gender as a concept. While they are feminine presenting, they don't identify as a woman. I particularly wanted to make Nell feminine to show that nonbinary people don't have to look androgynous!Simra (right) is our resident cool girl and bifauxnen character. Bifauxnen characters are "masculine female characters who resemble pretty, androgynous boys". Like Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon or Oscar from Rose of Versailles! Check out the other games in the festival too! :-Dhttps://store.steampowered.com/curator/46105077/sale/NonbinaryCodedGames~ Aeris
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• Patch Notes·1 Jul 2026Official

  Backtrace Development Update: Dev progress, Showcases

  Dev ProgressElliot, our writer, has been on a roll with writing the script! They've finished 3 of the ~12 memories—they've been making steady and consistent progress!Dacuri sketched out the expressions for Simra's floating head UI. We're aiming for 8 head positions that show off dynamic expressions for Simra. This UI will be the face of the game so we want to make sure it's particularly dynamic and eye-catching.I've been mainly doing marketing and admin tasks. I've been dragging my feet on programming and UI design. Particularly, I'm struggling with coming up with a good design for a radial menu to input characters onto the programming board (below). Let me know on Discord if you have ideas.ShowcasesOne of the highlights of this month was showcasing the game at a local retro video game museum. It’s my favorite place in the entire Bay Area, though the Computer History Museum is a close rival, and I honestly wish I could live there. The event was hosted by IGDA, and it was such a pleasure meeting other devs.Coming in July, we’ll be participating in our very first Steam festival! Steam festivals are online showcases that help games reach more players who are interested in a specific theme. I can’t say which festival it is just yet, but stay tuned. ;-)Hi from SimraI’ve been experimenting with chibi styles, and this is what I landed on. Collecting references for different styles and making a chibi style sheet was really fun. I'll be using this style for our promo art!Catch you in the next newsletter! o/~ Aeris
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