Everhood (game)

## System requirements

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 128MB
Storage: 400 MB available space

**Everhood** is a psychedelic rhythm bullet hell adventure RPG with musical elements, created by Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca. The Steam page describes it as "An UNCONVENTIONAL ADVENTURE RPG that takes place in an inexpressible world filled with amusing musical battles and strange delightful encounters. To put it simply: You are in for a ride."

## Gameplay

### Overworld

The game sees the player explore an overworld akin to that of classical JRPGs. The main method of interaction in this overworld is through talking with NPCs. Almost all NPCs are unique and a good portion of these offer fights that are relevant to the progression of the story.

### Battles

#### Battlefield

Most battles in Everhood takes place on a flat plane with five lanes with the opponent at the top of these lanes. These lanes are drawn to mimic songs from Guitar Hero, which itself mimics the neck of a guitar. In Guitar Hero, the notes sync up with music the bottom of the playing field, as the player is supposed to play each note; because they are meant to dodge the notes in Everhood, the music notes sync at their creation, as if the enemy was creating them.

#### Player Actions

The playable character has four possible actions they can perform at any moment:

* The player can move to an adjacent lane.
* The player can jump. This action makes the player invulnerable for a short period of time to ground notes, but tall notes can still hit them.
* The player can perform a jump roll, which is a midair dodge roll that occurs by moving while still in the air from a jump. Because this allows the player to reposition while invulnerable, it has a short cooldown upon landing.
* The player can deflect enemy notes under specific conditions.
	+ Using the tennis racket in Super Racket 1 or 2.
	+ Using the Sword That Deflects Red Attacks in Medallion.
	+ Using Red's arm after it has been retrieved in-game.

Under normal circumstances, the objective is to survive until the fight song is finished playing, or until the enemy is defeated. Due to this, many fights will always last the same amount of time, given that the player does not die by running out of health points.

#### Player Health

The player's health is represented by a horizontal red bar that appears above Red's head upon taking damage or regenerating health. The player has more health points on lower difficulty settings and fewer health points on higher difficulty settings.

After taking damage, the player has a brief period of invulnerability. Once it ends, they will begin to regenerate their health. The time it takes for health to regenerate increases with difficulty. If the player's health reaches zero, they will receive a Game Over screen, where they can restart the fight, continue from a checkpoint if the fight has one, change the difficulty, access settings, or return to the main menu.

#### Enemy Attacks

Enemy attacks have various properties:

* Normal notes take up 1 lane.
* Tall notes take up 1 lane and cannot be jumped over.
* Strafing notes take up 1 lane but sway back and forth in between multiple lanes as they approach the bottom of the screen. They have a "central" spawn row and may also spawn in either row adjacent to that row, giving them an element of RNG.
* Wide notes take up multiple lanes (2-5 lanes).
* Skull notes take up 1 lane and deal double damage.
* Tall skull notes take up 1 lane, deal double damage, and cannot be jumped over.

Enemy attacks can appear in various colors:

* In Medallion only, red attacks can be deflected by the Sword That Deflects Red Attacks. They function as normal notes.
* Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, and multicolor notes can be deflected by Red's arm.
* Black notes cannot be deflected by Red's arm.

#### Difficulty

The difficulty setting can be changed at any time during the playthrough, with the default difficulty being set to "Hard." The difficulty setting affects various aspects of combat:

* The player has more health points at lower difficulty settings and less health on higher difficulty settings.
* The health regeneration for the player is much quicker on lower difficulty settings and much slower on higher difficulty settings.
* For the most part, enemies will have less health on lower difficulty settings and more health on higher difficulty settings. However, there are a few fights where the difficulty setting has no effect on the enemy health. (See List of Battles for all health values.)
* The deflection range is more lenient on lower difficulty settings and tighter on higher difficulty settings.
* The "Story Mode" difficulty setting has altered fight attack patterns (a.k.a. altered charting) for enemies. They are easier for the player to complete. Due to the altered charting, no hit-related achievements are disabled in Story Mode.
* The "Insane" difficulty setting is unlocked after completing the Normal ending. Although the in-game description states "no Checkpoints," checkpoints that allow the player to skip long intro cutscenes are still enabled.

 Easy
 Normal
 Hard
 Expert
 Insane

## Story

The player assumes control of an animated wooden doll known as Red. Before they gain control, one of their arms is stolen by a gnome-like character known as the Blue Thief. Red pursues the thief in order to retrieve their arm. On the way there, Red battles different NPCs in a linear progression. The first battle against Frog serves as the tutorial.

Eventually, Red reaches the V.I.P Room of the Dance Club, where they see Blue Thief convening with their leader, Gold Pig. Gold Pig throws Red into the Incinerator in order to end their life. However, Red escapes and returns to the V.I.P Room. Gold Pig is no longer around, leaving behind a helpless and leg-less Blue Thief lying on the floor. Blue Thief explains to Red that Gold Pig stole their legs, and the two team up in order to chase down Gold Pig.

Red explores different locales in Everhood, via the magical doors that exist in the Cosmic Hub. Red is attacked by various inhabitants of Everhood, but they also befriend many of them. Subtle hints of the world's underlying existential dread and Red's sinister past are gradually uncovered as Red's adventure continues.

With Blue Thief's help, Red manages to collect the three pieces of the broken Blue Door. After the door is fixed, they travel through the Desert and reach Gold Pig's hiding place, the Desert Temple. Red defeats Gold Pig's henchmen and finally Gold Pig themselves. Gold Pig relents, returning Blue Thief's legs and allowing Red to retrieve their arm from the treasury.

After Red retrieves their arm, they learn from Frog that the inhabitants of Everhood have been suffering for many eons due to their immortality, their lives no longer holding purpose. Frog tasks Red with using their arm's power to free the inhabitants by ending their lives. During the game's true ending, Red follows the guidance of the Lost Spirits, eliminating all of the souls in Everhood.

After killing the Sun, it goes supernova, and the world seemingly ends. Red faces the souls of the inhabitants who felt wronged in a battle of reconciliation, as Red is repeatedly berated and attacked. Pink, a being that laid dormant within Red's body, suddenly appears, breaking the wooden doll into pieces. Pink is held responsible for Red's killings, and they allow the player to guide them through a few surreal areas. After sinking into the Abyss, they reach the final fight against the Universe, destroying it.

A mysterious being guides Pink to the Waiting Room, a location that exists after death. Upon reaching the Waiting Room, they are congratulated by a few Gnomes, and many of Everhood's previous inhabitants thank Pink for freeing them from the immortal realm. Pink and various characters participate in a cheerful battle as a final farewell.

## Themes

Shpongle, a psychedelic music group, is the main influence for certain music tracks and the overall tone of Everhood's story. Everhood's subtitle, "An ineffable tale of the inexpressible divine moments of truth," is derived from three different Shpongle studio albums that partly describe the sensations of the game.

Everhood's story switches between events that seem somewhat mundane and surreal at the same time, taking place across multiple undefined locations. Characters rarely resemble humans and instead take the form of strange and unusual creatures, such as humanoid animals, slimes, or mushrooms. The game also has elements of existentialism, with elements of the story hinting at a bigger picture and vague hints at "absolute truth" and "humanity."

## Development

Everhood is created by Chris Nordgren and Jordi Roca.

Chris Nordgren is responsible for most of the creative or audiovisual aspects of Everhood; this includes being the VFX artist, artist, and musician behind the game. In addition to working on Everhood, Chris is a Swedish VFX artist working for Mojang Studios on games such as Minecraft Dungeons.

Jordi Roca is responsible for most of the technical aspects of Everhood. Outside of Everhood, Jordi is a Spanish mobile games developer and founder of the development studio, LittleStone Games.

Everhood runs on the Unity game engine, a commonly used 3D game engine developed by Unity Technologies.

Everhood is published under the companies, Foreign Gnomes and Surefire Games. Foreign Gnomes was likely made for the sole purpose of publishing Everhood to Steam. Surefire Games specializes in making games available for East Asian markets.

## History

### Major Milestones

Development started with Chris Nordgren expressing a desire to make a JRPG with Jordi Roca. After prototyping a series of main mechanics, they could not settle on one that they could pull off or that had not already been made. Following this, Chris tried to describe an idea he had brainstormed, but it was too abstract. To illustrate the concept, he created a video that showcases the mechanics that would characterize Everhood.

Everhood started development around August 2018. The first public showing of Everhood was a gameplay test that Jordi brought to a local event on September 29, 2018. The vertical slice demo was first released November 24, 2018 on itch.io and Game Jolt.

On March 19, 2020, the Everhood Steam page was published. With it came a new trailer and a new demo. This new demo was almost identical to the vertical slice, with some significant changes to the last three battles. The trailer also showed off a considerable amount of content not seen in the demo, as well as revealing a release window of Q4 2020.

On March 4, 2021, Everhood was released to the general public on Steam and the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo Switch.

### Minor Events

* Everhood would hit the main page of itch.io in late November 2018 as part of the "Latest featured games" list.
* The trailer for the Steam release was decided by the Discord community, with a vote between two trailers, under the nicknames fox and frog. The fox trailer would go on to win the poll, and a modified version would be later featured on the Steam page as an official trailer. The two original trailers are available on YouTube as unlisted videos.
* On March 20, 2020, Everhood would be featured on the video game demo testing site, Alpha Beta Gamer, and its subsequent YouTube channel. This popular YouTube video brought in a large amount of new Everhood fans.

## Trivia

* Everhood takes heavy inspiration from Undertale and Yume Nikki.
	+ Chris Nordgren has stated in his devlog on February 7, 2019 that he was greatly influenced by Undertale.
	+ ATM is a character in Everhood that is an homage to Flowey, a character from Undertale.
	+ Lost Spirits are characters in Everhood that have their designs inspired by Uboa from Yume Nikki and No-Face from Spirited Away.
	+ The Cosmic Hub is a location in Everhood that is empty space filled with a variety of different doors that leads to different realms. This is similar to a prevalent room from Yume Nikki.

## Gallery

Everhood logoEverhood cover artworkEverhood release trailer previewEverhood cover artworkMarketing image of Red fighting ATMEverhood title screen
## Videos

Everhood Vertical Slice TrailerEverhood Announcement TrailerEverhood Launch Trailer
## References

1. ↑ File:Reference Deflection Distance.png
2. ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/games/1229380/announcements/detail/3060737864933565544
3. ↑ https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/everhood-interview-chris-nordgren-jordi-roca/
4. ↑ https://www.navigames.es/articulos/entrevistamos-a-jordi-roca-cocreador-del-inefable-everhood/
5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKMFwu8Il0
6. ↑ https://everhood.itch.io/everhood
https://gamejolt.com/games/everhood/374164
7. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15XaMeCdbaA (Frog)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6w7WE96b3I (Fox)
8. ↑ https://www.alphabetagamer.com/everhood-beta-demo/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6sluPAAKCg
9. ↑ https://everhood.itch.io/everhood/devlog/65750/everhood-or-the-idea-to-stop-worrying-about-making-the-game-a-financial-success
10. ↑ File:Reference ATM Flowey Homage.png
11. ↑ File:Reference Lost Spirit Design Inspiration.png