Epic Megagrant
Latest Updates
July 13, 2026
Started working on this mega grant application site
July 23, 2026
Finished up the mega grant application site
Overview
Yolings is a puzzle platformer game about solving puzzles by using self sacrificial abilities to save the rest. Different sacrifices creates different outcomes, so choose how to sacrifice your characters wisely.
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A 2.5D Single Player Puzzle Platformer
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Lemmings meets Abe's Oddysee with exciting puzzles
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Every self sacrifice changes the puzzle, and every survivor improves your score
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Directly control individual characters
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Single Player
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Relaxing puzzle flow, horrifying ways to fail
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Guide them safely… or watch them die
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Dark humor - inspired by Abe's Oddysee, Lemmings and Dungeon Keeper
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Calm Puzzle Platformer
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Handcrafted puzzles
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Take your time to plan your next move
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Occational timed puzzle solutions to keep you on your edge
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Use abilities to sacrifice and solve the puzzles
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Explore a semi realistic dungeon-esk world
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Full release planned for May 2027
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Demo available on steam
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Occasional devlog update to keep the community engaged
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Full realese will contain over 100 puzzles to solve!
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Showcase
Demo Trailer
Explosion Showcase
Petrify Showcase
Portal Showcase
Supercharge Showcase
Abilities
All abilities utilizes the Ability System.
This has enabled me to creates tons of abilities that can be can only work if certain conditions are being met by its owner actor.
The Ability System has enabled me to quickly iterate on animations, visual effects and game feel.
The possess and unpossess character ability is a great way of showcasing how the Ability System scales by adding and removing GameplayTags that other systems within the game can observe and respond to.
Possess/Unpossess
Restart
In this example, when possessing, the Ability System adds gameplay effects that
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Activates a quick camera shake
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Activates a possessed VFX
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Transitions the camera into a possessed state
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Switches out the input controls
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Switches out the character's animations
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Changes attributes to the characters movement
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Adds persistent particles effects to the possessed character's mesh
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Switches out and enables/disables certain abilities in the HUD
When restarting, the Ability System sends events to all relevant actors and can respond however they want. For example, different systems can react by
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Destroying destructable actors
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Killing all the characters
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Switching the camera into a restart state
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Reseting the level stats
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Play a quick camera shake
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Play relevant sound
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Play animations on decorative entites
Chaos Engine
The destruction system uses the Chaos Engine.
By replacing the asset that is about to explode to a GeometryCollection, the explosion looks really good, satisfying and realistic.
Explosion Demo 1
Explosion Demo 2
Good use of Unreal Engine
Level Transition
The level transition uses Unreals powerful level streaming tools.
By making each level with sublevels, the levels get devided into smaller parts where different level contains
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Only Level Data
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Only Lighting
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Only Decorative Assets
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Only Puzzle relevant Assets
And if nessecary in the future, these can be divided up more in the future to make sure the streaming would never cause a hitch.
With the help of the ability system, the Level Transitions system first loads the next level, and when its finished, the player is transitioned to the new level, and when the transition is complete, the game unloads the previous level to make sure no elements from the previous level exist when the new level is ready to play.
Level Transition
Lumen
The directional light is only used for indirect lighting. Lumen and the expontential height fog takes care of the rest, and the result is a gorgous atmospheric, and performant, world!
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C++
The entire game is written in c++ which makes the gameplay code much more performant than only using blueprints.
Blueprints are used to add components to actors from different modules/plugins, and then seamlessly have the different modules talk to each other that way.
This is an example of how much blueprint there is for an actor, the rest is in c++
Meta Sounds
Meta sounds enables me to stay and utilize Unreal Engine when designing the sound.
A system I'm proud of is a system I call Sound Controllers, which can be attached to anything in the game, and through those controllers, I can make small logical objects that knows how to play a sound and how to pitch it.
For example, when the game "freezes time", the sound controllers pitches down the sound by the current TimeDilation's multiplier (at what speed the world should run at), and that makes the freezeing/unfreezing of time sound very satifsying.
I don't have to any extra work when implemnting a sound as the sound controller - together with the meta sounds - do all the work.
Freeze / Unfreeze Time Sound
Plan To Grow
Project Yolings
I'm requesting two funding scenarios of Megagrants which you can read more about under Budget;
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$45,000
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$115,000 - primary request
$45,000 supports five months of continued solo development, and being able to outsource QA, music, localization, art, and launch preparation etc.
$115,000 will allow me to hire three additional team members focused on art, animation/VFX, level designs and polish.
Future Projects
My long-term goal is to build a small, sustainable team around the success of Yolings.
If the larger Megagrant is accepted and I have team, a successful release would allow us to remain together to explore new game ideas. I have a few more ideas I want to explore as an indie studio.
Making games is the career I always intended to pursue regardless of the outcome of this project. The success of Yolings will determine whether I can continue primarily as a solo developer or can establish a lasting independent team.
Project Roadmap
October 2026
Polished
Prototype /
Megagrant application
Final
Prototype
Steam Fest
Demo
Alpha
Beta
Full Release
September 2026
July 2026
August 2026
December 2026
March 2027
May 2027
1 Month
1 Month
1 Month
2 Months
3 Months
2 Months
Current Build
5th Ability
10 new puzzles
Polish & Playtest
Closed Community
Playtests
80 % Done
1.0 Release
Onboarding (10 puzzles)
Explode Ability (10 puzzles)
Petrify Ability (10 puzzles)
Portal Ability (10 puzzles)
Supercharge Ability (10 puzzles)
Total 50 Puzzles
- Polished
- No Crashes
- Few and minor bugs
Estimated playtime: ~4 hrs
Mind Control Ability
- Implementation
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Functionality
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VFX
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Polish and Bugfix
Mind Control Puzzles
Playtests
Steam Fest Demo
- To Gather Wishlists
Total 60 puzzles
- Polished
- No Crashes
- Few and minor bugs
Rebindable controls
Target Performance:
- 60 fps on 2gb vram
Estimated playtime: ~5 hrs
20 - 30 New Puzzles
- Abilities Combined
Rebindable controls
Target Performance:
- 60 fps on 2gb vram
Estimated playtime: ~6-7 hrs
Around 130-150 puzzles
Clear Level Progression
Estimated playtime: ~9-10 hrs
Polished Product
Around 150-170 puzzles
Playtime: ~13-15 hrs
*Timeframes are estimated and subject to change
Copyright © Mikael Cedergren 2026
A polished and well made demo for steam fest
Project Roadmap
Final Prototype
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60 Puzzles
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Polished and Satisfying
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No Crashes
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Minor bugs
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Target fps: 60 on 4 gb vram
Continued development of new puzzles
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100 Puzzles
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Level redesigns by feedback and game balancing
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Highly Polished and Satisfying
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No Crashes
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Very few and minor bugs
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Rebindable Controls
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First draft of level progression system
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Target fps: 60 on 2 gb vram
Alpha
The polished product tested throughout beta
Full Release
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150 Puzzles
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Final Polishe
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No Crashes
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None to a couple of unknown bugs
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Rebindable Controls
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Target fps: 60 on 2 gb vram
Copyright © Mikael Cedergren 2026
Self-Funded Dev Cost Before Grant Period
Between November 2025 - December 2026
~$70,000
Estimated Total Dev Cost
Between November 2025 - May 2027
Self-Funded
With Team (from January 2027)
Estimated Remaining Cost
Between January 2027 - May 2027
Considered Specialists to hire
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2D / 3D Artist
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Animator (VFX)
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Level Designer
Mega Grant Request
Primary Request: $115,000
Secondary Request: $45,000
Budget & Funding
Personnel
High Level Estimates
Software & Hardware
Localization
Outsourcing
Launch assets &
marketing
$25,000
$4,000
Solodev
$500
$5,000
$5,000
me + 3 team members
$4,000
Expanded Team
$100,000
Includes
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Paying youtubers to play
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Paying streamers to play
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Outsource Gameplay trailer
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Store page banner (if no 3D artist)
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Game Logo (if no 3D artist)
$2,500
Includes all invisible extra fees
Details
$500
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Adobe
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Rider
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Soundly
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Reaper
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Any 3D application by employees
Hardware depends on employee needs
Includes
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QA
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Art
Copyright © Mikael Cedergren 2026
$3,000
$44,500
$115,000
Summary
~$115,000
~$185,000
Self-Funded
~$45,000
With Team (from January 2027)
~$115,000
Other
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Music
$5,000
$5,000
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Contingency
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Additional polish or release support
Competitive Analysis
Comparative titles
Comparable games across character-routing puzzles, dark humor puzzle platformers and sacrifice-driven mechanics.
There is a proven demand for the ingredients behind Yolings, but no obvious major competitor combines them in the same way.
Humanity
Release Date
May 2023
Platforms
PC, Xbox, PS, VR
Unit Cost
$29.99
Steam Sales
> 23k Units
Oddworld:
New 'n' Tasty!
Release Date
Feb 2015
Platforms
PC, Xbox, PS, Wii U,
Switch, Andoird, IOS
Unit Cost
$19.99
Steam Sales
> 280k Units
Zombie Night Terror
Release Date
July 2016
Platforms
PC, Switch, Android, IOS
Unit Cost
$12.99
Steam Sales
> 151k Units
Tin Hearts
Release Date
May 2023 (on steam)
Platforms
PC, PS, XBox, Switch, VR
UNIT COST
$19.99
Steam Sales
> 3.8k Units
MouseCraft
Release Date
July 2014
Platforms
PC, PS, XBox, Switch
UNIT COST
$9.99
Steam Sales
> 23k Units
Flockers
Release Date
Sep 2014
Platforms
PC, PS, XBox
UNIT COST
$9.99
Steam Sales
> 23k Units
Pit Pioneers
Release Date
Mars 2026
Platforms
PC
UNIT COST
$9.99
Steam Sales
> 50 Units
Little Casualties
Release Date
Coming Soon
Platforms
PC
UNIT COST
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Steam Sales
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Sources
Found via: https://steamdb.info/tag/17337/?sort=followers_desc
Sales and release dates: https://gamalytic.com/
Platforms: google search for each title
Copyright © Mikael Cedergren 2026
The Team
The short answer is:
The team consists of only me, Mike, and I'm a solo Swedish game developer working in Unreal Engine trying to fulfill my dream of releasing my own first independent commercial game
At the core, I'm a programmer, but also see my self as someone who has a keen eye on game design, which was why I started working on this project to start with. To test the game idea and design it.
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Has been working with Unreal Engine since 2014 as a hobby or school and professionally since 2022.
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Previously worked as a programmer on
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Undead Inc., published by Team17
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TROLLHEIM: GNOMES, currently in development
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Independently designed and developed Yolings in Unreal Engine 5, including its core gameplay systems, production tools, UI, progression and puzzle content
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Built on reusable scalable systems to enable fast puzzle creation and iteration.