We’re already a quarter way through 2022 so feels like time for a bit of an update on Courier Tale…
The past few months have been slower progress wise than I would have expected. Most of Courier Tale has flowed out naturally, but these last parts have been a very slow trickle. Maybe it’s because I’m working on the final quests (known as Jobs in the Courier Tale) and also the endings. Perhaps these parts I’m working on currently feel more important than other parts so there’s an element of overthinking it.
Because I’ve been working on the end of the game, I’ve felt like it was too spoilery at this point, so I stopped streaming game development throughout February and most of March. I’ve recently started doing some streams again, focusing on what was going to be the next phase (the beta/polish phase), starting with improving graphics. For now I’ve been streaming Tuesday and Thursday afternoons AWST, mainly focused on improving the left and right side graphics and animations of the characters. I’ve gone with more of a sidescroller side profile look which I think looks much better than the old flat side-on profile.
Quest/Job wise, all of the main deliveries are now complete. All but one of the side jobs are done. This past week I’ve been working on the first ending. That ending is almost complete. It’s pretty satisfying seeing an ending then watching the credits roll after. While the game probably still has 6-12 months of polish ahead, it does help make it feel closer to the end. I said the “first ending” as I’m hoping to have multiple endings. I’ll anticipate starting on the 2nd ending later this coming week.
For my 2021 wrap up I had hoped to have Courier Tale fully playable as an alpha sometime in February, worst case scenario March. That was based on the previous pace of development. With these last sections taking longer than expected, I’m now thinking the end of April is more realistic. Once fully playable, alpha testing will begin as well as the beta/polish phase. While alpha testing won’t be available to the public, you should be able to play a portion of Courier Tale in the near future…
Events both physical and digital are starting to pop up submissions wise, so I’ve been planning what events Courier Tale might be involved in. At this stage I expect the Courier Tale demo to be available online on Steam around mid 2022. The demo will likely also be showcased at some physical events in Australia in the 2nd half of 2022. The demo will at this stage be the same as shown at Perth Games Festival 2021, but with some updated graphics, new music and other tweaks.
And so that wraps up the Quarter 1 2022 of Courier Tale game development! If you want to keep up with the development of Courier Tale make sure to follow @couriertale on your favourite social spamming platform, join the email list, join the ZedKraze discord (it has a Courier Tale channel!) and watch the Courier Tale be developed live on Twitch!
And the best way you can support Courier Tale right now is by wishlisting it on Steam!