Everfall-Games
Everfall-Games’ first demo release: LB2
We are following a few contender projects as they struggle to develop and present before publishers and investors.
Everfall-Games is one that has recently caught our attention.
Let’s zoom in on 2 young entrepreneurs trying to compete with the best in an already incredibly saturated and hyper-competitive market. With a small team of 2 and some contracted artists, they have eagerly stepped into the ring with the big players. The question is: Can they really compete with major studios? Or is it just wishful thinking?
Yes, they are in over their heads.
Do they have something that fans, publishers, and investors can get excited about? Something unique, and inspiring? Can they separate themselves from the mindless hoard of raging game devs all competing against each other for a small slice of the pie.
But there is a glimpse of light in this dark tunnel. For them, it’s a popular publisher that has shown some interest in their project and is now waiting for a playable prototype.
Here are some excerpts from an interview I had recently with the project lead, Ricardo Valdes,
Pascal Academy: Are you excited about the publisher's interest?
Ricardo: “Yes we are very excited, but we still think it’s just a possibility, we don’t want to get too excited, we always want to have a plan B”.
Pascal Academy: You personally as an entrepreneur, do you have doubts about the viability of your project?
Ricardo: “Yes I have doubts all the time. I think what has gotten us this far is to not give up and give in to those thoughts. The initial 6 months, we had really no clue what we were doing, we were just figuring it out. We were getting “no’s” and rejections, but we didn’t give up. And now things are starting to pick up.”
Pascal Academy: What do you hope to accomplish with all this?
Ricardo: “We want to be a huge studio making unique and memorable games”.
What they have going for them now:
Superb visuals, AAA.
Accessing Unity’s high end rendering HDRP pipeline. The team has been able to put together some stunning gameplay visuals. Although just tiny snippets, these set the bar on what the final product will look like. It immediately attracts and legitimizes who they are and what they are doing.
A great A.I. angle.
The team’s technical academic background allows them to study and build on top of other complex A.I. games, such as Alien: Isolation, which they are attempting to surpass, and have already, in terms of the number of behaviors the A.I. can express. A.I. is the next big thing, and they are setting up to be specialists within it.,
A focused genre and prototype goal.
They know what they want to achieve. One of the biggest quagmire traps in the development process is wandering about, adding whatever feels right at the moment, which always leads to unfinished Frankenstein products. So far, their focus is keeping the project moving quickly, and in the right direction.
The makings of a great team.
2 intelligent, dedicated, hard-working, and passionate young developers; hungry as ever to make a name for themselves in this exploding industry.
What's next?
The next hurdle for this team and their project is the Vertical Slice presentation to the publisher. As they try to hit that with force, they are slowly building their fan base and getting essential feedback from gameplay testers on each new demo build.
We will check in on these guys again in a few months and see where they are at.
Interested in this project? Check them out.