Article / News

Escape from Ever After Prologue to Launch July 19th

Screenshot of Escape From Ever After of characters crossing a stone bridge in a fairytale town

Now this is a promotional tactic I can get behind. Announced at the recent Guerrilla Collective Showcase, a free prologue to the Paper Mario-inspired RPG Escape from Ever After (formerly Flynt Buckler Wakes the Sleepy Castle) will launch on PC via Steam on July 19th. Developer Sleepy Castle Games and publisher HypeTrain Digital have yet to pin down a release date for the full release.

Don’t let this game’s cartoon aesthetic and fairytale theme fool you, as it’s certainly not shying away from being an overt satire of capitalism. The proof is in the pudding, so here’s a trailer for the Escape from Ever After: Onboarding prologue. Scroll below for a brief synopsis.

Escape from Ever After Overview

Escape from Ever After is an adventure RPG inspired by the classic Paper Mario games, where fairytale and storybook characters must fight back against capitalism!

Story

When Flynt Buckler, a classic fairytale adventurer, storms the castle of his evil dragon arch-nemesis Tinder, he finds the once intimidating fortress has been converted into… corporate offices? The villainous dragon is nowhere to be found and her castle is full of mindless coffee-sipping, report-filing drones. What happened?

It turns out that storybooks are an untapped market ripe with valuable resources, cheap labor, and profit to be had—so naturally, real-world conglomerate Ever After Inc.™ found a way to intervene! With Tinder’s Castle as their new corporate headquarters, Ever After Inc. is hellbent on taking over every storybook they can. With no choice but to get a job, Flynt Buckler must team up with his former nemesis Tinder in order to climb the corporate ladder and take down Ever After Inc. from the inside!

Explore

Dive into storybook worlds packed to the brim with colorful characters, captivating locales, and electrifying secrets! One moment you’ll be fleeing Lovecraftian terrors while solving a noir murder mystery, and the next you’ll be up against villainous versions of The Three Little Pigs as they try to bulldoze a fairytale forest for their real estate developments. The rules are always changing!

Fight

Face off against hordes of wacky enemies in snappy turn-based gameplay! Perfectly timed action commands allow Flynt to finish off his foes with style, and an assortment of items, badges, and partners ensure there’s always a trick up his sleeve.

Features

  • Fight in a fun, fast-paced battle system that rewards experimentation and strategy
  • Build and customize your party—every character has unique skills that can be equipped and upgraded throughout your journey
  • Engage in office banter, help your storybook coworkers, and decorate your office as you climb the corporate ladder
  • Explore vast storybook worlds brimming with sidequests, treasures, and secrets
  • Stories within stories: experience a charming and lively narrative where the rules are constantly changing
  • A jazzy, big-band soundtrack that keeps the energy pumping throughout

And what’s more, the Escape from Ever After: Onboarding prologue will be available in German, French, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Russian. In an announcement posted on Steam, Sleepy Castle Games shared that it’s looking to work with speakers of those languages to ensure that the translation is up to snuff, so you may want to apply if you have the qualifications.

The free release Escape from Ever After: Onboarding launches on July 19th for PC via Steam. Keep reading RPGFan for all the latest summer gaming news!

Be part of the conversation and join us on our Discord, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Gio Castillo

Gio Castillo

Gio is a writer and editor with a deep fondness for role-playing and management games. He lives in the Philippines with two cats he loves dearly.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.