BEHIND THE SCENES
Blossom in the garden
Evergarden
A new kind of puzzle game
A mother once hung a large poster in her living room. It was a poster for a racing game developed by her sons Forest and Aaron San Filippo.
She wasn’t a gamer, far from it in fact. But she proudly displayed this poster and enthused with excitement about how great the game was.
“It was the first game my brother and I made after quitting our jobs. It was a frantic racing game, and definitely not a genre for our mother, but she was head over heels about it. It inspired us. We wanted to make a game that would appeal to people that were not native to gaming, much like our mother.”
And that’s how Evergarden evolved. The San Filippo brothers drew on inspiration from their mother’s green thumb for her small garden and began developing an idea for a game based around a garden.
The game has a hidden story that isn’t obvious to begin with. But as you spend time in Evergarden, it gradually blooms. And the San Filippo brothers sowed their love and nostalgia for their mother thoughout the game. Here, Forest shares some of the hidden stories from the garden.
Development of the game took longer than usual, why was that?
The thought was planted a long time ago, but development slowed several times. Our mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she passed away in 2015. That was when we decided to create Evergarden in her memory.
Why did you choose to make a game about gardening?
When I was a little boy, I remember our mother being very fond of tending to the garden. There were five of us siblings and we all helped her. At the time, we thought it was just a chore, but now we all have our own gardens and we all enjoy tending to them. She passed on that love to us. Gardening is an investment, you don’t get immediate benefit because it’s a slow, patient process. I guess because of that it’s very relaxing.
The game is sparse with explanations. Is the intention for players to learn as they go?
We minimised the tutorial aspect to just three words at the beginning. We had some feedback asking for more tutorial, but we also found that people were finding a sense of achievement from figuring out the rules and discovering hidden hints. The reward is only as satisfying as the challenge and we wanted the game to be a rewarding experience.
What exactly is the identity of the animal guide in the game?
We never came forth about it publicly and people were very curious. We were inspired by the big-eared desert fox but gave it horns, so it’s a beast of fantasy.
Can you tell us about Flippfly’s philosophy on creating violence-free games?
There are already enough violent, provocative games out there. We want to create things that children and grown-ups can enjoy without any of that. My 7-year-old daughter is already a fan of Evergarden.
Can you share one rule in the game that most people don’t know about?
Merge enough flowers and you can create a monolith. Create three of those monoliths and face them towards each other to form an even higher-level monolith. A winged rabbit or armadillo is created when it tries to cross through a beam that connects two monoliths.
Is your mother’s presence weaved into the background of the story?
Of course. We wanted to keep it in the background. Some players recognise it pretty quickly, while others never catch on. Near the final stage of the game, the garden appears as if it is in a terrarium.
What does it all mean? Can you give any hints?
Sure, the Evergarden world is inside the terrarium. The protagonist in the game is putting away their mother’s belongings after her passing when the terrarium is found. It’s also why the game’s perspective is set in the way it is: top down as if looking down into a terrarium.
With this revelation, the player also becomes aware that their mother was also the garden’s guardian and that responsibility has now been passed down to the player. That was what we brothers experienced while putting away our mother’s belongings and began to know her better as a person. We wanted to bring that to the game.
One more thing: in the scene in the game where the player is given the responsibility of being the garden’s guardian, a grave can be seen. It was an homage to our beloved mother. We lay her to rest on a hill facing west and the game’s depiction of that hill is true to life.