Show Not Tell Without Flashbacks

As far as show, not tell, flash backs seem to be the go-to mechanic for showing things that happened prior to the game timeline. However this can sometimes be problematic as people can use flashbacks that over explain and aren't necessary, or they just are out of order and end up confusing the player. Also this can just get really timely and make things really complicated especially in rpg maker where it's usually a one man team.

Is there another way to show the player events that happened prior to the game's time line without having to flip back and forth between presence and flashbacks?

In a game I'm making, I have an idea for a story where the main character starts the game losing her job and leaving her husband because she's unhappy. Throughout the course of the game she has to collect 10 redemption points to win the game, essentially, and she earns them by making things right that she did to other people that were wrong. The only problem I'm having is that in this time line all of the wrong things the character did happened prior to the game starting.

I'm not sure how to implement this kind of redemption arc without flashbacks.

One thing I thought may help is adding interactivity in the flashbacks by using the previous time line as a second world the player could interact and make choices in still, just like the present timeline. However the transition from present to past seems really jarring and seems like it would not be natural.

You can use books and diaries.

I'm just worried using books and diaries would not be as impactful as witnessing what happened.

Having books and diaries would definitely be telling not showing. If you want to show she is depressed, have her apartment be messy. Maybe wine bottles lying around?
Some wedding photos will tell the player she was married.
Maybe a work uniform from her past employment somewhere in the apartment?

These are ways to show the player what happened without telling.

Flashbacks will always carry the most power. Apart from flashbacks and books/dialogue there's also a way to tell the player via hints and stuff. But that may be too subtle.

My game also requires this for a few twists not found out until later, that the player will have to reflect back on. I plan on putting in small bits of memory either via the quest line, or optional fragments/lore somehow. Either way the important bit is that I will make scenes short, to the point, and even a little vague. Us as devs want to convey many things, and sometimes we get a little too hand-holding when trying to explain or show something. I think flashbacks are okay as long as you keep them short. Keep in mind that even the best selling novels, every reader will interpret bits differently, and that is okay. The main point is still conveyed, and some readers may get more than others. Same for games and its players. :kaopride:
You could even try fully visual flashbacks. No text, just an auto-run cut scene with moving actors and maybe emotion bubbles. Usually players will understand from this unless there is specifically things that were said that are important to the story. However just visual should be fine for flashbacks that are trying to convey more feelings than words. :kaoswt2:

Flashbacks are generally considered to be lazy writing in every form of media, doesnt matter if its games, movies or books. Sometimes theres no other way but generally, and with games in particular, you want to tell everything through the environment. Even when they are used flashbacks aren't supposed to be impactful, they are supposed to provide context for whats happening in the present.

I've always found flashbacks to be a lazy resource to give the current plot line a twist or (worse) a fix.
lately I've been watching Blindspot and The Gifted on TV, which rely heavily on flashbacks, and I feel like The Gifted makes a good use of them by first introducing the flashback before getting to the point where the flashback might be relevant, while Blindspot goes the other way, showing the situation pulled out of the hat first, to then introduce the flashback telling how it came to be (which to me is rather lazy writing)

also, in games, the only occurrence of flashbacks I can think of, is Prince Of Persia, where flashbacks weren't flashbacks per se, but actual jumps in time to the past or the future to circumvent an obstacle (especially the great hall level in Warrior Within, which has two or three time jumps in total, that was crazy to play)


I believe you solution is the The Gifted approach: split the narrative in set chapters, and prior to the beginning of a new chapter, jump to a flashback.
do the flashback as a cinematic, and let the player *play* the solution, having control over it.
splitting the in and out as separate scenes helps the player understand what should be done, and direct the player's attention to play/not-play.

going the POP/Blindspot way would cause the game to jump to flashback in between actions of the "current" timeline, and that can cause two problems: one, it might be confusing for the player, and two, if you can't replicate the changes from the past into the present, then there's no point in having that interaction.
(you could set it so that the player can't actually "alter" the environment, but "set it to be" as in the future, kind of like in Back To The Future with the broken clock tower.... but that might be harder to write into the narrative)

EDIT:
Westworld.
another "mind = blown" use of flashbacks.
no spoilers.... if you haven't watched it, go watch it and come back.

"Show, Don't Tell" doesn't literally mean do not use words or dialogue to impart knowledge or sentiment. It means let the audience see and feel the full weight of events, rather than explaining the events to them.

Often, showing the lingering effects of something that happened in the past could be a good way to do this. A few ways beyond flashbacks that you could go about showing the effects of this woman's actions and mistakes in the past:

• Dialogue where she acts out in certain unusual ways, or other characters mention that something is wrong with her (without direct expository dumps)
• Pictures of people who used to be in her life, or of events where she did something wrong
• Item descriptions that allude to things which happened in the past
• If your game has combat or other system-based gameplay, you can use the names/effects of skills, flow of her kit, etc. to hint as to the type of person she is or what's in her past
• Visions/dreams/hallucinations of people from her past, symbolic objects, etc. can also be very useful in describing her past - even if the context of these people/objects are not directly given in the visions and even if the visions aren't 100% accurate

In meeting one of the persons your MC has wronged, the other side could loose his temper, or break down crying and explain how *he* experienced the things your MC did to him and what effect it's had on his life.

Not only would it serve to create a more believable and relatable NPC it would also help explain to the player what the MC did wrong and why she needs to correct her mistakes.

Use memory snapshots, like a photo album that pictures all the important events in a short event. Get the same effect as a flashback with visuals, but it'd up much less time than a cutscene or playable section would.

Flashback are great if used correctly. My main character will have them, but in little spurts.

Let me go over the specifics of "showing vs. telling" because the example you give (flashbacks) really isn't accurate.

Telling writers to "show" rather than tell generally means spending more time on scene, tone, and diction to establish some sort of plot point rather than explicitly write out or describe what's happening. Even though a flashback seems like showing, it's actually telling because you are directly presenting them with the knowledge and leaving them nothing left to infer. Example:

"I wonder how Garland got that scar on his eye?"

(Flashback ensues showing Garland lose a duel in the past)

This seems like a better alternative to merely saying "He lost a duel in the past," but realistically you are doing the same thing, with maybe a little extra leg work. The player no longer feels intrigued or invested in Garland because they are given the knowledge on a silver platter. I think inference is an important word to use here--you want your player to infer the game's knowledge rather than be handed it directly (text intros, books, NPC dialogue, etc). Of course, writing a game isn't exactly like writing a book, so some of these "telling" devices are more or less acceptable.

So what's the alternative? Well usually "showing" involves some sort of aesthetic endeavor. Rather than telling the reader that the nearby village has been burned down, maybe ash rises in the sky and horns are heard from afar. A lone man staggers into town with scrapes and scars of every sort. A throng gathers, rife with commotion. There are lots of ways to indirectly establish plot points using aesthetics like this, and consequently makes the player feel much more involved and intrigued. Perhaps they even get to visit the burned village themselves? That would make for an interesting venture.

Showing also involves diction, which is your choice of words for dialogue. If someone asks Garland about his scar, maybe he responds distantly with "I... don't want to talk about it," as he lays down his sword on the table and walks away. This conveys that whatever happened is a painful event for him to recall. In a less edgy example, you can adjust how a character talks to better show their personality and history. Perhaps an upbeat tone for a naive villager, a somber tone for a chiseled veteran, or a pompous tone for the ubiquitous sassy lancer.

Lastly, the unique thing about writing a game vs. writing a book is that the player has (or should have) full agency to look around, talk with NPCs, and even explore a bit. Allowing the player to pick up subtle hints about the past or present as they explore is the cornerstone of a thoroughly-written RPG. Maybe a defenseless village has an empty garrison with broken swords and rusty armor? There's a lot to work with given the amount of maps and amount of events you have. The only task is avoiding "matter-of-fact" statements to progress and convey the plot--which becomes much easier as you get farther in the development process.

Shoot me a PM if you want to bounce specific ideas about your game because I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the word limit, but hopefully something I wrote here helped.

Flashbacks are primarily used to create "context". If you use them for other purposes, then you're sort of using them wrong.

One of my favorite examples is Final Fantasy 6 and its use of "flash backs". They don't outright state 100% of a situation. They provide context to the characters having the Flashbacks. Setzer loses his friend after having a race with her. What happened? We're not sure. She never shows up at the rendezvous. The flashback is a short scene of what this person meant to Setzer, why he is the way he is, and why "Daryl's Tomb" even exists. It provides context for the new Airship you obtain after the last one was destroyed. Do we ever find out what happened to his friend? She died. How? We don't know. We're left to guess or infer. But, the point of the cutscene isn't to tell us why she died or how. It's to tell us why Setzer is who he is, and why this tomb exists, and why there's an airship here. It exists to tell us something about the character and to create emotional impact.

Every flashback in Final Fantasy 6 does this. It gives us a hint at why the characters are the way they are and provides context for the situation our heroes find themselves in. Why does Locke care about helping Terra who has amnesia? We don't find out until there's a flashback of him losing the woman he loves to amnesia and it being partially his fault. Who is Shadow, really? We don't know unless we find all of his flashbacks in the game.

Almost every character has these flashbacks of some sort. To tell us why they are the way they are. Why they carry their baggage.

A flashback, done well, imparts this information with emotional impact enough to establish the context for a character.

The opening to my game is largely a "flash back". It is meant to portray the events of the world and tell you how it got to that state, as well as to highlight the personalities of all the main characters you'll meet. At certain points in my game, as you engage with the main story, you will be asked to "Interact" with a Flashback from the main character you're playing as. To make a decision for them. This sets up their history, backstory, and direction of the current story.

One of the Flashbacks I have handled is a young main character talking to his "mentor" and eventual "best friend". He asks him about the scar and tells him that if he didn't have it, ladies might find him more attractive. The mentor tells him that the scar is a reminder that he's a very good soldier and does his job well. The player sees from the first moment they get the Main Character under control that they have the same scar in the same place. Even the earliest cutscenes we see of the Main Character in his flashbacks have him with this scar. If the player is observant, they wonder how they got it. Where did it come from? Did he get it the same way as the mentor? The player is eventually told how they got it via a conversation with the Mentor later in the game, but it is left ambiguous. The player is left to guess on their own. This is showing and not telling. The explanation for the scar is only finally provided to the player in order to provide context for the current situation. Because, it doesn't matter until that point.

That's the point of flashbacks. To help provide context. Not to wrap up a mystery. Not to provide a plot twist. Not to drop an explanation on people about what exactly is going on. But, to provide enough information and enough context on a current situation that the Audience will understand EXACTLY what happens next and WHY it does.

Flashbacks are catalysts.

Flashback scenes are pretty good to show what happened before, but I think the most important rule to follow is this: Do not make the past more interesting than the present day events. I would say that the best way to look at it is like this. You have a scene where you can inform the player that the character's father went on a journey or show when he left. This is a good point for a flashback scene. Another good rule is to remember not to add too many of those types of flashback scenes in your game. It's rather hard call to make, but I would look at people who did it right and wrong to get a good picture of that.

This is the most important aspect of “Show Don’t Tell” in my opinion. Your character has to right a wrong? Don’t tell the audience about it in a flashback. Rather, put her in a situation where she has to confront that person she wronged. Let the audience feel the tension that wrong has created in the relationship. Let us see the horrible consequences of her actions so we not only empathize with the character but also feel a stake in her making things better.

A cleverly crafted, proactive scene should be able to pull the double duty of revealing backstory and moving the plot forward. No need to use a flashback.

Thanks everyone. I was really stuck on how to move forward in my game but now I know what I'm gonna do. All the replies were super helpful.