The Q3 2024 Courier Tale Dev Blog is here. It may be a couple of weeks late, but that’s because as you may have heard, Courier Tale has finally been released!
Leading up to the release of the game a few things happened. Courier Tale was featured in the first-ever PixElated Adventures showcase on Steam. This was a great one to be a part of, being that it was an event focused on pixel art games. Courier Tale also returned to the Cat Awareness Sale for the 2nd year in a row.
Soon after, the time had finally come not only for a new Courier Tale trailer, but the announcement of the release date… 10 September 2024. This date had some significance. I say Courier Tale started development on 10 September 2020, so when deciding a date to release once the game was finished, going for the development anniversary date seems like as good an idea as any. Choosing a release date is hard these days. There probably used to be good times to release a smaller game like Courier Tale, but now I don’t think that exists. Last year there were about 14,000 games released on Steam and there are already about another 14,000 games released in the first 9 months of 2024. With this many games coming out, there’s no week where there isn’t a few hundred games coming out. There’s isn’t a day where probably about 50 games are coming out. So at the end of the day you just gotta pick a date and hope for the best.
Making the trailer was hard. With a short narrative game like Courier Tale, the biggest challenge was how to market it without spoiling the whole game. I want players to experience the best parts from the first time they play the game, not through some other means. That’s much easier with a 100-hour RPG like a Final Fantasy game, than it is with a 2 – 4 hour walkin’ n talkin’ adventure like Courier Tale. Hopefully I got the balance right. I think the release date trailer does hint at some mystery in the game, but perhaps it doesn’t portray the satire side as well as the teaser trailer might have.
Once the trailer was dropped, it was time to prepare for the launch. Continued playtesting and fixing. Preparing marketing. Luckily I felt like the game was already finished before the release date was announced, so most of the work on the game from then on was minor tweaks like fixing typos.
Then the release day arrived. I’m based in Western Australia. I went for an 8PM AWST release date time, as that meant almost all of the world would technically be 10 September at that time. I expected to be up all night after pressing the big green release button on Steam, but it was in fact pretty anti-climatic. Four years working on this game. Four years talking about this game. And then you just press a button and it’s out there in the world.
Turns out all the playtesting was worth it, because to this day, one month after release, I’ve pretty much had no bugs reported. If you do come across any, report them on the Studio Kraze discord or Courier Tale Steam forum. It seemed naive to think you could release a game with little to no bugs these days, when some games can be complete disasters on launch. But I’ve not yet had a major need to update the game since release. There are a few typos to fix and a dialogue that can be triggered to replay more than once, but nothing game breaking. I might do a small update in October or November just to tick those minor things off.
The game received some media reviews. Here’s a couple of quotes:
“I really enjoyed the ironic and humorous commentary, which went well with the story that unfolded. Without giving away any spoilers, it is really worth investigating the story, which all starts falling into place.”
8/10 – Comic Buzz
“Courier Tale is a short but sweet narrative adventure game, with a decent dose of exploration. The story is one full of intrigue and the dialogue is funny and interesting. If you love a good exploration game, it’s definitely one to add to your wishlist.”
The Indie Brew
Speaking of reviews, if you have played Courier Tale, it would be great if you could leave a review on Steam. Doesn’t have to be long. Could be just one sentence. Steam reviews are really important for indie games. It’s been great reading players’ feedback so far. People seem to be enjoying the satirical dialogue, the characters, collecting the cards and the mystery of the game.
You can get the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1632100/Courier_Tale/
The soundtrack which features 27 lofi beats is available on Steam, including in the Lofi Beats Edition bundle which saves you 10%. You can also get the soundtrack on Bandcamp:
https://zedkraze.bandcamp.com/album/courier-tale-lofi-beats-to-deliver-to
One thing to note if you purchase the soundtrack is you also get a bonus 8-page digital manual that you can print out on a A4 double sided page and fold into a retro console inspired manual.
So what’s next? Well Courier Tale is a one and done game. There’s no plans for a sequel or DLC and if you play the game to the end you’ll probably see why. Courier Tale might pop up in future showcases though.
I don’t know if it’s because I knew the game was finished, but a week after the release of Courier Tale, I came up with a Courier Tale card game idea which I started working on straight away. It’s early days for that project, and who knows if it will one day release, but I may do a public playtest of the prototype soon, to see if it’s got potential.
But I’m not just working on a card game. I’m also working on my next video game. We’ll just refer to it as “Studio Kraze Game 2” for now. Unlike Courier Tale which I started to live stream development of basically right from the start, this next game may not be revealed for 6-12 months, maybe even longer. Basically I won’t be announcing this one until there’s at least a trailer, preferably a demo. The next game is pixel art and it is a narrative game, but it’s a bit of a different type of game to Courier Tale.
I’m hoping the next game won’t take 4 years to make like Courier Tale did. I learnt a lot from making Courier Tale, and I’m really happy with the end result, even if it took longer than I would have liked.
I hope you like Courier Tale. I hope you enjoyed these dev blogs. This potentially is the last Courier Tale game dev blog, though maybe I’ll do another one to wrap up 2024 at the end of the year.
While I always say follow @couriertale on your favourite social spam platform, might I suggest you also follow @studiokraze for future Studio Kraze game news.