Hey guys! Our third "Secret Eden Log" elaborates on the creation process of Everreach: Project Eden. Creating the world of Eden has been a massive undertaking for an indie team like ours. It all started with a prototype version of the 3rd person controls where you could explore an empty grassland terrain.
The very first screenshot from Everreach: Project Eden, 2016 September
Nora’s hair and clothing were just a placeholder at this point and other than walking around on an empty landscape you couldn’t do much. After that it was time to build our environmental assets and a brand new landscape to explore. And this is where the real challenge began.
Every single plant, every blade of grass had to be created from scratch. The goal was to design a custom armor for Nora and also fill the world with all kinds of plants, animals, waterfalls, cliffs and make it as much of a living, breathing environment as our budget allowed.
Early concept art of Nora’s armor
In the next 5 months or so our team has designed over a dozen alien plants. We’ve also integrated numerous tools to help with level design, such as a tool to easily be able to „draw” rivers onto the landscape as well as be able to import our own custom trees into the game, which would then be affected by wind.
In February 2017 we already had a nice-looking environment and a functional 3rd person control system for Nora. Still, we had a long way to go. Nora’s controls had to be polished, and we needed to, you know, make the actual game.
Our first environment, February 2017
The majority of 2017 was spent implementing most features at a basic level. We had an early version of the game’s skill tree back then, we’ve built the foundation of the UI, we’ve added enemies that used the environment to their advantage to play against you, and the first few dialogue options were also available.
Arguably, one of the biggest features of the game is the skill tree containing over 80 upgrades. This is most likely the feature that went through the most changes throughout development. Luckily, we’ve built a tool early on where you could easily add or remove skills from this tree and our system would automatically handle skill prerequisites and rendering the skills along with how they are connected and which ones are available.
The game’s extensive skill tree with over 80 upgrades
In early 2018 we’ve reached a point where the Zeus hoverbike needed to be added to the game. The Zeus hoverbike is an important part of the game as it helps Nora traverse between certain locations.
Once the hoverbike was in, it became possible to start adding other biomes to the game. Throughout the remainder of development we’ve added forests, a swamp, grassy plains, other outposts and a massive desert area. During this time we kept polishing the controls and balancing the skills as best as we could, allowing multiple ways to upgrade Nora’s character.
A month ago the game reached a near-finished state. We delayed the game’s release a bit further so we could polish the controls, add an aim-assist option, and put the finishing touches on a game that we’re very, very proud of.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/915670
