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May 31, 2024 Akupara Games

Akupara Monthly Dev Log (May 2024) | Everafter Falls final dev log before launch

Happy May everyone. Welcome to the first ever monthly Akupara dev log. These blogs will happen at the end of each month where I talk with developers from different games being developed from our catalog and give insight on what has been worked on!

 

This blog has tons of variety between each game from the adorable relaxing farming sim of Everafter Falls to the darker vampire psychological horror of Cabernet. Here is the full lineup for the dev log!

  1. Everafter Falls
  2. Cabernet
  3. Nanomon
  4. Sorry We’re Closed

Everafter Falls | Final Dev Log before release!

This will be the final dev log before launch of Everafter Falls an it has been amazing to work alongside Ou with these dev logs and just as exciting to get the game into your hands.

 

Everafter Falls is a lifestyle farming sim where you farm, fish, and forage a huge collection of items to make the most efficient yet cozy farm. Features split-screen coop, a pet with useful skills, automated drones, resource-harvesting pixies, a card-eating progression system, and dangerous dungeons to explore!

 

Wishlist Everafter Falls on Steam!

 

And with that, I leave the rest of the Everafter Falls dev log before launch to Ou where he talks about the artistic evolution of Everafter Falls.

A Look Back: The Artistic Evolution of Everafter Falls

The launch date has been set for June for Everafter Falls! I could not have gotten here without the amazing support of the community, and the valuable contributions of the Alpha and Beta testers. I cannot thank everyone enough, I know countless hours have been spent trying to break the game and diligently reporting the results. Their efforts have undoubtedly made the game that much better. I’d also like to thank everyone who has been waiting patiently through all these years. I do hope you enjoy playing Everafter Falls as much as I had creating it.

 

I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to reflect on the differences between the early development and the current state of the game.

 

In this post, I will focus on the art and discuss its evolution throughout the development process.

 

To start, a bit about my background in art: I have never received formal training in art, nor had I practiced extensively before embarking on the creation of Everafter Falls. While I did enjoy sketching and doodling occasionally and was often told I had a talent for drawing, the bulk of my skills have significantly developed over the course of this project.

 

Nearly all the art you see in the final game went through numerous iterations. The final look and feel were not established until quite late in development, requiring a considerable amount of experimentation before settling on a particular style.

 

I eventually settled on a style that blended some elements of pixel art and low resolution textures, with a hand drawn, cartoony look. The final result was achieved using vector art in Adobe Illustrator, but it did take me some time to get satisfactory results.

The decision to incorporate pixel art was partly due to technical considerations. Using pixel art allowed me to load the entire sprite atlases used in the game into memory all at once,, simplifying the process. For example, in the image below, the BEFORE scene uses high-resolution textures for everything, while the AFTER scene uses pixel art for the house borders, wallpaper, and flooring. The sprite atlas size in early development was over four times larger than the final version.

 

The color palette also evolved over time. The final game is vibrant and colorful, which might surprise some given the restraint exercised during development. In fact, due to feedback that the colors could be overwhelming, a “toned down” color option is available in the settings. Below are some changes made to the Everberry and Yummyberry bushes, which are common throughout the game.

 

Later into development, once I had the style figured out, I found it useful to design and layout scenes using a graphics program (in this case Illustrator), before creating it in the game. This gave me a rough preview of how things might end up looking before committing to it.

With the artstyle decided on, it still took a fair amount of iterations before I got the result I wanted. Some iterations were due to technical challenges—such as deciding against animating characters with arms due to the added complexity—and others because I needed more practice to reach a satisfactory level of skill.

 

For the UI, I found this to be the most difficult and time consuming part of development, but also the most rewarding. Keeping things as simple as possible, and prioritizing functionality and legibility is something that needs to be considered from the get-go. Of course, experimenting is a great way to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. This was another area in which I transitioned from high-resolution textured graphics to pixel art, which not only reduced the image sizes, but also allowed for scaling the UI and maintaining clarity.

 

Reflecting on this journey brings back many fond memories. It is amazing to see how far the game has come, and it feels surreal that the release date is just around the corner. To anyone else on a game development journey, I wish you the best. Remember, it is an iterative process, so don’t give up!

 

Cabernet | Joins our library

A couple weeks ago we announced that Cabernet is a new title that joined our library and we are happy to welcome them with open arms. Cabernet is a 2D narrative RPG set in a 19th century Eastern European inspired world, with a modern twist.


Follow the adventures of Liza, a young woman, as she struggles with the burdens of becoming a vampire. The hunger for blood, the responsibilities of her found new powers, the new rules of vampires, there is so much to figure out as a young vampire. Your choices matter with your other vampires as you either form a friendship or adversary with each of the characters in game.

 

You can wishlist Cabernet on Steam!

 

I talked with Laura and Arseniy, a developer at Party for Introverts, about what they have been working on early in development.

“Hello fellow vampire enthusiasts!

 

The Party for Introverts team is hard at work polishing away at Cabernet, but we wanted to pop up out of our coffins to share with you some fun behind-the-scenes morsels for our first-ever dev log installment.

 

Currently, Laura’s head is spinning (in the best possible way) from the final proofread of the entire game – all 1000 plus pages of it! No matter how many times you read a narrative game script, there’s always a maddening typo or two that eludes you…. Far more fun for her this week is the task of perfecting the final puzzle Liza will encounter on her journey. There’s no better excuse to continue avoiding the sun (which does occasionally make an appearance in England) than an amusing design challenge.

 

Arseniy has had a pretty intense past few months chipping away at programming all the side content and extras that will really help further enrich our characters– characters we hope you will love as much as we do!

 

We’ve also completed the initial music pass and can’t even begin to describe how incredible it is to now hear our custom-composed music fill our world with the perfect blend of melancholy, beauty, and more than a dash of dread. Be on the lookout for more info about our talented composer to come….

 

We will now leave you with both a serious and silly image to hopefully sate your bloodlust for the time being. Thanks to all of you for being on this journey with us– there’s much more to come!

 

Till next time,
Party for Introverts


Can’t wait for you to explore more of the world: 

Programming bugs are a never-ending source of both amusement and frustration: 

 

Nanomon | Joins our library

Just like Cabernet, we announced that Nanomon has also joined our library. Nanomon is the same developer that created the award winning Kardboard Kings, Oscar Brittain. Train your Nanomon with love and training so they evolve into the perfect companion. This is the perfect game to have running while working on something else.

Wishlist Nanomon on Steam!

Oscar is hard at work getting all those little monsters to behave but the good news is: He’s got a Youtube channel! 

If you haven’t checked it out yet and you wanna see some of the good stuff coming down the pike for Nanomon, take a quick look at some of the videos that Oscar has put together. You can see the first devlog for Nanomon from four years ago, some development during the pandemic up to and including new features like farming added just a few months ago! 

There’s a treasure trove of Nanomon goodies in here so make sure you give it a watch!


Sorry We’re Closed | Nostalgic Single-Player Survival Horror

Sorry We’re Closed is a nostalgic, single-player survival horror game where you follow the final days of Michelle who tries to break a curse placed on her by a powerful demon. Enjoy atmospheric environments driven by classic, fixed camera angles and the thrill of arcade-style, first person combat.

You can check out the demo on Steam!

The developers behind Sorry We’re Closed may have just been nominated for an award at A Maze Berlin, may have been featured in LudoNarraCon earlier this month, and may be getting attention from streamers and influencers for their insanely cool, atmospheric demo, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t forgotten us! If you haven’t already, give the a la mode Twitter account a follow. There’s some very cool, in-progress screenshots from very early development builds of the game and I couldn’t be happier to show them off to you.

Take a look: