Effie: A Modern 3D Action-Adventure with Old-School Influences

Inverge Studios began as a passion project between six friends with a shared love of games. Despite not having a background in game development, the team has released multiple games within its first four years of operation. Inverge’s most recent title is Effie, a 3D fantasy action-adventure about a young man named Galand who goes on a quest to recover his youth after a witch curses him with premature old age. Effie is available today as one of September’s free games with Prime, and we spoke with Inverge Studios CEO Pablo Martinez to learn more about the game’s old-school inspirations and get some insights into the studio’s history.

A group of six multimedia engineers with no prior experience in the game development space created Inverge Studios in 2016, in the coastal Spanish city of Valencia. The team’s passion and love of video games helped drive them to learn all the various aspects of game development. According to Pablo, the team found themselves “wearing multiple hats during the development process, including coding, lighting, sound and special effects.” Within the studio’s first three years, they quickly learned the ins-and-outs of game development and released three games for mobile. With those titles under their belts, they decided it was time for a much more ambitious project.

In early 2018, Inverge Studios switched its focus to Effie. “We wanted to make something influenced by the games we grew up with and that inspired us to get into game development,” Pablo said. The team shared a common love of classic 3D action-adventure platformers like Ratchet & Clank, Medievil, Jack & Daxter and Banjo-Kazooie, and decided to create a game inspired by these series.

Despite having launched three mobile games, the process of developing a 3D game proved complex, and the team ran into obstacles including switching game engines during development. Pablo and the team are passionate about helping Spain’s small indie development scene thrive and grow, and decided to include both English and Spanish voice-over options, making their task even larger. “Spanish voice-over typically does not receive much recognition in gaming,” said Pablo, “so it was important that we add the option to the game to make it more accessible in Spain and globally.”

Effie launched in January 2020 to much praise from gamers. Many reviews noted that the game plays much like an homage to classic 3D action-adventure franchises, and its unique storyline has also garnered attention.

Pablo hopes that Effie being made available to Prime members will help give the game a wider audience and also revive interest around the old-school 3D action-adventure games he loves from the late 1990s and early 2000s. “Working with Prime Gaming is an exciting opportunity and we hope that the game can reach an audience that may have not previously thought about playing the game,” he said.

Learn more about Inverge Studios here.