Escape from Ever After

At the beginning of Escape from Ever After, classic fairy-tale hero Flynt Buckler storms the castle of his archenemy, the dragon Tinder. However, he finds that the fortress has been converted into offices for a corporation, and the dragon is nowhere to be found. Instead, the castle is full of mindless drones sipping coffee and filing reports. The castle belongs to Ever After Inc., a company that commercialises fairy-tale worlds and is determined to take over every storybook it can. With no other option, Flynt teams up with Tinder and other fairy-tale characters, infiltrating the company undercover with the aim of destroying it from within.

Paper Mario is clearly the central inspiration: players fight as fairytale heroes against a greedy megacorp from a side-scroller perspective. They explore colourful, cross-genre picture-book worlds full of familiar fairy tale characters and complete main and side quests that sometimes take a light-hearted approach and sometimes offer a more satirical treatment of capitalism. Added to this are office humour, office decoration and interactions with colleagues. Exploration, environmental puzzles and discovering secrets are also important. Exploration is made more interactive through partner abilities that allow players to manipulate the environment in new ways. For example, Tinder's (Dragon) fire can ignite explosive plants to clear paths. Wolfgang's (Big Bad Wolf) songs can make plants grow to full size and turn them into platforms. However, there is also Eva, the Skeletal Witch, who has the power to transform both living and non-living objects, including the player themselves.

The game features turn-based combat in the style of Paper Mario, with quick-time events for precise attacks and defences, and real-time action prompts for things like perfect dodging. These can be challenging and repetitive, andnot all action prompts are equally appealing. Team synergies are important for devastating combos, as are customisable characters and equipment. Each character has unique skills that can be equipped and upgraded throughout your journey. Items, trinkets and character-specific customisation options add layers of choice and personalisation. Trivial battles can be bypassed, which also encourages exploration. All of this is accompanied by a big band soundtrack.

A standalone prologue, Escape from Ever After: Onboarding, was published even before the release, and it has already amassed over 10,000 players and received overwhelmingly positive reviews (96%) on Steam.

Escape from Ever After was developed by Sleepy Castle Studio, a two-person team based in Montreal, Canada. The team consists of Ryan Kitner (project founder, programming, animation, character art & style, porting) and Daniel Whitworth (creative director, level design, game design, writing & narrative, music & audio design, production). The game has been in development since 2020. What started as a small, Paper Mario-inspired passion project slowly grew into something much bigger. It all started with a Kickstarter campaign. Wing-It! Creative is also involved in the development. The game is being published by HypeTrain Digital. This Cyprus-based indie game publisher is best known for Stoneshard, Breathedge, Black Book, Voidtrain and Nordhold.

Escape from Ever After was released on January 23, 2026, on PC (Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch for €24.99. The game does not currently offer French and German localizations. However, these are in development and are scheduled to follow in February/March 2026.

Conclusion

Escape from Ever After is much more than just an homage to Paper Mario. It's a charming adventure RPG with vibrant storybook worlds and surprisingly deep systems.

Features

• Vibrant, interactive and inviting storyboard worlds
• Engaging combat featuring timing-based mechanics
• Charming visuals