We, like pretty much every other puzzle dev team were inspired in no small part by the 2007 hit, Portal. The one issue with that being… Portal came out in 2007.




Though we didn’t feel the need to greatly innovate graphically for the puzzle genre, since Portal, there have been plenty of other breakthrough games in design: Journey, The Witness, What Remains of Edith Finch, just to name a few. These games, among others, represent a vast evolution of game design philosophy, and we didn’t want to be left out.





A few things we took away from the success of all these games were: a good single-player game has its story woven directly into the gameplay, separating the two was unacceptable, and a simple, linear experience with no world-building wouldn’t be tolerated either.



https://gleam.io/dcROO/free-ever-forward-game-steam-keys



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111445966&searchtext=ever+forward
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Protoform was the original title of our game; we started with the goal of creating a pure puzzle game, and from the get go, we worked extremely hard to make our puzzles feel good.
Our first major milestone was reaching a point where we liked our puzzles, felt like they were not just unique among puzzle games, but also unique from puzzle to puzzle within the game.


Four years later, we’re close to releasing our finished title, aptly named Everforward, representing the journey of our character moving forward through her simulated world, and the journey of us moving forward as a development team.Developing the puzzles was the first step, but it became clear to us that we needed more than just pure puzzles to make the game really stand out.


WE started writing the script then, it was all very basic at that time, but the idea of a mother and daughter, themes of controlling and being controlled, these were all there from the beginning.

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Wallpaper engine for Ever forward: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111445966&searchtext=ever+forward

Hey everyone thanks for being the first to download our game! We really appreciate your support and feedback! Thank you for all the positive reviews! Let’s keep it going!
We will be updating regularly so stay tuned; it just gets better from here!

1. Adjusted the position of the level 4 cube generator, and deleted the middle column;
2. Fix CPQ getting stuck bug;
3. Fixed in puzzle cube interact loop;
4. Fixed bug of the laser screen not restoring the initial state correctly after closing the level;
5. Adjusted the pillar behind the roundy bot of the first puzzle in level 3, because there is a small gap that makes the player want to throw the cube up;
6. Deleted the third puzzle automatic save point in the first area, which may cause the player to “death loop”;
7. Added a large air wall to block the sophisticated players who can run behind.

According to the bug reports from everyone, we found that there are many problems with the save system.
We will test and investigate in detail, and we will solve them one by one later.

Thanks for your supports!



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We are happy to announced that our imaginative puzzle platform adventure title Ever Forward as a free demo, and it is scheduled for launch this summer on PC.


In Ever Forward players impersonate Maya; a twelve-year-old girl lost on the edge of dreams and reality.
As you unveil the mysteries of her subconscious, you will unlock her memories step-by-step and progressively face her fears and sorrows.
By facing challenging puzzles and exploring breathtaking environments, you will slowly reveal the secrets buried in Maya’s heart.


The Ever Forward demo will let fans experience nearly 40% of the entire game content, challenging them with eight intricately designed puzzles. At the same time, players will be able to immerse themselves with the game’s dual environments and dive into the main characters (Maya) memories and secrets.

Note that the saving file will be inherited in the full release version

If you like Ever Forward Demo and find this game fun, please add to your wish list, so to receive the latest game information.

Thanks for the support, at the same time we would much appreciate if you can share it with friends and fellow gamers.

To keep up with the evolution of EF make sure to follow us on:

• Twitter @EverForwardGame
  
• Instagram @everforwardgame
  
• Join our Discord Channel: PatheaGames

Although development on Everforward began officially about 4 years ago, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the game we’re about to release started development two years ago.



The game known as Protoform perhaps could have been ready for some kind of release back then, but we all agreed that releasing a puzzle game without a sufficient level of depth to it would be selling ourselves short.



One of the major changes was the main character Maya.



Ever Forward Fan Art



Maya has gone through significant changes since 2017. Which one do you prefer?

A. Maya 2017
B. Maya 2019
C. Indie Artist
D. Your Fan Art???

Hello, everyone!
Welcome to the Ever Forward Devlog from Pathea Games.
We'd like to take the time to share our journey with you, about what Ever Forward is, how it came to be, and hope that you enjoy sharing this journey with us.



The beginning..


Protoform was the original title of our game; we started with the goal of creating a pure puzzle game, and from the get go, we worked extremely hard to make our puzzles feel good. Our first major milestone was reaching a point where we liked our puzzles, felt like they were not just unique among puzzle games, but also unique from puzzle to puzzle within the game.

Here’s the shot that started it all:



Four years later, we’re close to releasing our finished title, aptly named Ever Forward, representing the journey of our character moving forward through her simulated world, and the journey of us moving forward as a development team.

Developing the puzzles was the first step, but it became clear to us that we needed more than just pure puzzles to make the game really stand out. We started writing the script then, it was all very basic at that time, but the idea of a mother and daughter, themes of controlling and being controlled, these were all there from the beginning.

We, like pretty much every other puzzle dev team were inspired in no small part by the 2007 hit, Portal. The one issue with that being… Portal came out in 2007. Though we didn’t feel the need to greatly innovate graphically for the puzzle genre, since Portal, there have been plenty of other breakthrough games in design: Journey, The Witness, What Remains of Edith Finch, just to name a few. These games, among others, represent a vast evolution of game design philosophy, and we didn’t want to be left out.

A few things we took away from the success of all these games were: a good single player game has its story woven directly into the gameplay, separating the two was unacceptable, and a simple, linear experience with no world-building wouldn’t be tolerated either.

In the beginning it was hard to see the forest for the trees.

Our first versions of Protoform were… alright. But we felt like we were making a silent film in the era of modern blockbusters. We committed some of the very sins we noted and promised to avoid at the beginning of the development process: our puzzle gameplay felt completely disconnected from the story. Locking all of our puzzles in a Portal-like lab interior was confining and boring. Overcoming technical problems, design issues, graphical issues, we now think of Protoform, and the metal laboratory in which it was set, as the cocoon from which Everforward emerged.

Our first attempt at breaking out of the cocoon was with an over-world like what you see here:




A clean and tidy island with soft white sand, and black buildings holding unsolved puzzles.

The idea here was to create a duality of freedom and confinement as players solved puzzles and made their way through the game. Ultimately, this over-world idea was scrapped, however the aesthetic ended up being something we’d hold onto all the way into the final stages of development.

The problems with this over-world were numerous: the open space was too nice and made players hate the puzzles. Our script was linear, which made the whole “open-world” aspect meaningless. There was nothing to do in the over-world except awkwardly move between the puzzles. And finally, a somewhat minor issue, some of our puzzles taking place in strange spaces didn’t really make sense on the map.

Then there was our protagonist to think about. Being a 12-year-old girl, she’s not capable of much in the way of acrobatics. No tomb raiding or assassin creeding for our little puzzle solver! This, however, led us to worry that playing as our character wouldn’t be exciting or stimulating enough.

We tried adding a few things to make our protagonist’s physical gameplay a bit more high-octane: we gave her some high-winding vines to climb; unfortunately as we tried to affect the intangible pacing of the game, we found it impossible not to disrupt the actual speed of gameplay; in order for our hero to feel right, we couldn’t let her climb up the vines too quickly, it felt too dissonant packaged with everything else we’d made so far.



Then we thought of another classic, Shadow of the Colossus. Maybe we could make this thing into a boss rush! That’d keep things exciting, eh?



This didn’t really get anywhere, though, sadly. With our core design, the block/stealth/motion puzzles already in place, we found it impossible to tie everything together. Having a game consist of block puzzles followed by boss fights once again felt way too dissonant. Furthermore, coming up with a bunch of interesting boss fights would prolong development time indefinitely, and early attempts just didn’t feel good enough for us to want to go in this direction.

It was then we were finally ready to start bridging the gap between the environment for our world and the environment for our puzzles. Why not build the environment first, and the puzzles second? And build a world where we can use the mechanics we’ve already established for puzzles?

This was the next stage of concept design for our maps, referred to amongst the team as, “铁憨憨,” or something like “blockhead.”


But the Journey wasn't over yet. There was still more to do...

On February 1st, our studio decided to donate all the February sales from "My Time at Portia" (including Steam and WeGame platforms) to support Wuhan for helping people against COVID-19.

Now, our first batch which are 13 cases of protective clothing (nearly 100K Chinese Yuan) has arrived in Leishenshan Hospital today.

This couldn't have been possible without you.
Thanks for being part of My Time at Portia family, thanks for supporting Pathaea and our other games!


For more gaming information, please follow:
Twitter https://twitter.com/EverForwardGame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Everforwardgame/

We're proud to announce Ever Forward, an adventure puzzle game to be released early summer.

Hey everyone! We have a new game to announce here, it's called Ever Forward and it's a adventure puzzle game. Now before anyone start throwing a fit about updates for My Time at Portia or the release date of Super Buckyball (they're all coming), let me just say we've been working on this game with a small team for the last 4 years! It's been a long time, but the team has worked very hard on getting it right.

Some of you may remember this project as "Protoform," we even released a demo two years ago. But we decided that while the original puzzles were great, the game wasn't paced very well nor very attractive. So we went back to the drawing board and redesigned the entire world and the gameplay outside of the puzzles. It hasn't been easy, there were many ups and downs during development. Now we finally feel like it's something most puzzle gamers will like. But don't take our word for it, we'll be releasing a demo of Ever Forward in March here on Steam, so please look forward to that.

For now, please wishlist our game!