It's been awhile, hasn't it?

For those who came in late, hi! I'm Petra, and for the past few years I've been working on a full-sized original platformer to act as a proper follow-up to my previous work: Foreverred. A lot in my life has changed over this time, and I've learned so much over the course of writing and rewriting and rewriting this project. After all this time, everything is finally in a state where I can confidently show you more.

I have three things to show off today. One that you can check out right now, one that's coming soon, and one for the far future. We'll work backwards.

IN DEVELOPMENT: Goodbye Foreverred

Two years ago, I released a playable PICO-8 demo based on my first prototype for a Foreverred sequel. When I gave the "original" release window of 2023, this was based on my plan for the game at the time, which was essentially a heavily expanded version of this demo.

I'll be the first to admit my expectations were very optimistic, but considering the game has partially restarted development multiple times, I hope you can understand why I published that date to begin with, and why I'm holding out on announcing a new one. I don't want to disappoint you again.

All assets and code in the game are being redone from scratch - the sprites in the image above were provided by my very skilled friend WuffMakesGames - so there should no longer be any legal ties to Celeste. In fact, the game has long outgrown being a sequel to a Celeste Classic mod, and as such I've finally given it a name of it's own: Goodbye Foreverred. I spent a long time deciding if this was the right choice to make, but this title perfectly fit the themes of the game and the story I want to tell, and establishes its place as an original, final iteration of Everred.

Unlike the original game, Goodbye Foreverred isn't a mod of Celeste Classic, and is developed in the LÖVE framework rather than the PICO-8 fantasy console. We have a lot more room to work with, especially when compared to the original mod (which could barely fit inside the cartridge memory in the first place)! However, this means I've spent a lot of my time learning, as I've needed to build the basic features I would take for granted in a full game engine from scratch. The constant iteration means a lot of time has been spent fixing up code I wrote years ago... This entire project has been quite an ordeal, to say the least, but I'm very proud of how much I've improved over time.

The current plan is to release Goodbye Foreverred on Steam and itch.io, with a price somewhere around $10 USD. The game will feature 7 main chapters, each containing ~30 handcrafted levels. Unfortunately, it is still a long ways from being done. I never, ever expected to spend so long on this, and if I were able to go back I would likely do things differently. Obviously that isn't possible... but that doesn't mean I can't alter history a bit. After all, the name "Foreverred 2" is now free, and had I really started on a smaller PICO-8 sequel project like I originally planned, it would certainly be done by now, right?

RELEASING SOON: Foreverred 2

Surprise! I've been secretly working on a Celeste Classic 2 mod for a bit, and it's coming along quite well. It has been hard to avoid talking about this, but I wanted something new and exciting to show here. This is a smaller, more faithful sequel to Foreverred with new takes on familiar locations, some brand new mechanics to play with, and grappling hooks.

Foreverred 2: Lila's Trek will be releasing by the end of the year - for real this time. I know it's not exactly the original "Foreverred 2" that everyone has been waiting on, but it's been nearly four years since Foreverred first released (how???), and I really want to give you all something new to play while I continue to chip away at my big game. I hope you enjoy it.

OUT NOW: Foreverred v1.2 + Bonus Pack

One last thing! I've published a small patch for Foreverred (1) that also includes a special new downloadable bonus pack. You can read more about it on the dedicated update post here: https://petthepetra.itch.io/foreverred/devlog/735918/foreverred-v12-a-tiny-updat...

Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me that people out there care about what I'm making. I can only hope to live up to your expectations, but I'm doing my best to ensure that even after all this time, what I've been working on will be worth the wait.

- Petra