Everafter Falls 2.0: A Year of Listening and Transformation

Okay, so, here goes — kind of a rant, but bear with me. Everafter Falls, right? That game, man. When it dropped about a year ago, none of us really had a clue how much it’d evolve once we started talking to the folks who were actually playing it. Fast forward to today, there’s a chunky new content update that nobody saw coming. I’ll get into that, but first, pause—let’s rewind a bit to the game’s debut. Ah, yeah—forgot my own name there for a sec. I’m Joseph Shockley, or Riv Otter if you’re one of those folks who hang out on Discord with me. Yeah, I’m the Community Manager for Akupara Games.

Everafter Falls was our maiden voyage into the farming sim world. We tossed it out there and got feedback from just about every corner of the Earth—or at least the gaming corner. And being real here, managing that feedback was a trip. I fired up a channel in the Everafter Falls Discord for discussions galore. We had suggestions, rants, you name it. I made sure to skim through the Steam forums too, letting players know, like, “Hey, we’re listening!”

Now, major shout-out to our solo developer. Insight from players was super crucial to shape what this game was going to be. Anyway—who am I kidding—back to the surprise bits! A curveball came from this crew of players I dubbed the “completionists.” Their thing? Collecting every tiny item and raising every little insect to fill a journal. They kept hitting this wall, right? Running in circles trying to snag that one missing thing. There was no freakin’ way to up your odds either, unless Lady Luck decided to smile your way. So, we see this bottleneck and bam, it hits. We gotta fix this.

Enter version 2.0, where we dropped two shiny updates for the completionists. The Golden Shroom Terrarium and the Epic Critter Terrarium. One gives you a 100% shot for a shroom you haven’t snagged, and the other lets you breed bugs you’re missing. Cool, huh?

Moving on, players went to town decorating their farms. I mean, we knew from the start that cosmetic touches would win hearts, but wow! Folks went nuts customizing, and maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked? Who knows. The louder they cheered, the more it drove us to roll out more decorative bits and bobs. And voila, in this update, we threw in a ton of new decor. People are already decking out their farms—love to see it!

Now, quality of life improvements—fancy term, right? Basically, just stuff to make life easier. Like, tracking achievements. Originally, there was no built-in way to see what you’d crafted, so you were stuck scribbling on scraps or Google Sheet-ing your way to clarity. Now, there’s a blue star next to things you’ve crafted in the menu. No more paper-trail chaos.

There’s so much more, but I can’t even. Players helped shape this update, and it felt like a ride. Designing around feedback? Totally scratches that itch we have to create something immersive. Now, go check it out, Everafter Falls 2.0 is live on Xbox. Peace.