Dev Blog

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.

It’s the middle of the year so it’s time for the Q2 2024 Courier Tale Dev Blog…

At the end of March I had finished up some early pre-production work for Studio Kraze’s second game. With that out of the way it was time to focus on finishing Studio Kraze’s first game… Courier Tale. With the base game sorted, I was able to start spending time on additional features. First up was sorting out the collector cards you can collect in the game. There’s 24 all up to collect and there’s a collection screen on your in-game phone menu so you can keep track of what you’ve found for all of those collectors and completionists out there.

Next up another feature for completionists is Steam achievements. There’s currently 10 achievements in the game and thus far they seem to be working, though beta testing on Steam will confirm if they feature in the final game. The Steam achievements will have different icons and names, I have just kept them generic for now to avoid story spoilers before release.

While Courier Tale’s controls are pretty minimal, it is easy to forget that people need to know how to control the game. Courier Tale supports Keyboard or Gamepad controls (sorry no mouse). While there are customizable controller settings in the options menus, I felt it was best to introduce the controls at the beginning of the game. So now when you start a new game, you will see this Default Controls splash screen. Keyboard actually has more key options like WASD for movement, but I wanted to keep this splash simplified and just show one option for Keyboard controls.

On 25 May 2024, I finally declared the game was in Beta. It was a major milestone after multiple years of development. June was spent doing internal beta testing (aka me playtesting the whole game and making any changes or fixes). This very dev blog was a bit later than usual partly because only a week ago I was transferring this website to new hosting, but also because I wanted to reach another huge milestone.

Yesterday the first external playtest happened (aka someone else played Courier Tale from start to finish). It was pretty nerve-racking, but the playthrough was mostly bug-free, with no soft locks/blockers that stopped the player from progressing through the game.

This is really promising, so while there’s more playthroughs to be done by other beta testers in July, if that testing goes well it’s hopefully looking more likely that Courier Tale is getting close to release. So when is Courier Tale releasing? Well I’m not quite ready to announce a release date yet, but hopefully it won’t be long now. I can say I am targeting a Q3 2024 release, so hopefully for the next Dev Blog I write in October, I can be talking about how Courier Tale has released.

But before then, Courier Tale will be featured in two upcoming Steam showcases, which I’ll announce in the coming weeks and also update the Steam demo with the latest tweaks in the lead-up to those events. I’ll also be working on launch marketing including the release date trailer. So yeah it really does feel like I’m coming to the “tail” end of Courier Tale development, and hopefully it will be “delivered” very soon…

As always don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam and follow @couriertale or @studiokraze on your favourite social spam network.

A quarter of 2024 is already done? Wow, must be time for a Courier Tale dev blog…

The past few months have seen Courier Tale featured in some online Steam showcases. The first showcase was The Storyteller’s Festival 2024 at the end of January. It was great to be selected for this event. It’s actually run by another Australian developer called Two and a Half Studios. This was the perfect sort of showcase for Courier Tale to be part of, seeing it is a story-focused event. It was also the most successful event that Courier Tale has been part of, so I can only hope Courier Tale can be included in the Storyteller’s Festival in 2025.

The next online event Courier Tale participated in was RPG Maker Festival. Courier Tale was part of RPG Maker Festival last year as well, so it was good to be able to return to be involved in it again.

One thing I’ve been doing during these Steam showcases in the past 6 months or so has been live-streaming a video to the Steam page. This video was a demo tour where I detailed the features and influences of the game. Well, now you can watch that video more easily by checking it out on Youtube…

All this promo stuff aside, progress has definitely still been made on Courier Tale. I completed the soundtrack, so hopefully there shouldn’t any more music work to be done other than potentially some tweaks to the master. I have now been working on what I call the “tech polish” phase. There’s a lot to do to finish it off, so I’ve broken this phase into multiple stages. The first stage has been completed which included proofreading all of the dialogue. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an automated process, so it was a very manual task. The other thing completed in this stage was checking map transfers. While most of Courier Tale is a mini semi-open world structure, it is broken up into small single-screen maps, and there’s a lot of them! So making sure the player transfers to the right map and doesn’t break the game is important.

I’m now currently partway through the 2nd stage of the tech polish which has included making sure the right music and sound effects trigger when moving from one map to the next. This stage will also be a semi-playtest stage, checking collisions, graphics layers and once again double checking those map transfers are working properly.

There will be a couple more stages of tech polish after that before finally beginning Beta testing. That will truly be the major milestone once I reach it. How long will it take to get to Beta testing? How long will Beta testing take? When will the game release? I dunno. The usual “within 3-6 months” mantra comes to mind, but certainly with each tech polish stage that is completed, it starts feeling very close.

Granted I could have been a bit further along if it wasn’t for the fact I’ve also been doing some work on Studio Kraze’s next game. I hope to start proper pre-production for that in the 2nd half of 2024 once Courier Tale is released, however, there was some work I needed to do on it now. That work is now complete so I can focus fully on finishing Courier Tale for the coming months.

And speaking of months, that about covers the past few months of Courier Tale development. As always, if you want the latest Courier Tale news, make sure to follow @couriertale on your favourite social spam network, join the Studio Kraze discord and don’t forget to wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

Another year has been and gone, so it’s time for the Q4 2023 Courier Tale Dev Blog…

This quarter’s blog is likely shorter than other ones for the simple fact that all I’ve been working on the past few months is finishing graphics. That’s ok though, because a major milestone was hit right at the end of the year. While I’m sure there will be some final tweaks before release, I think… the graphics for Courier Tale are complete!

As such I released a new screenshot. I’ve been hesitant to release new screenshots as I don’t want too many spoilers out there, and also, up until now, the graphics weren’t complete. I’ll likely release more screenshots closer to release, but it’s good to get some fresh visuals out there.

During this process I noticed the way I had been capturing both screenshots and video of Courier Tale had been showing the graphics desaturated. This is due to a colour profile issue on my main monitor with the playtest mode. I’m now using another computer with a 4K monitor for capturing, that represents the colours accurately. As such I’ve updated all of the screenshots, and future trailers will also look more vibrant colour wise and in 4K. Perhaps some people might prefer the desaturated versions, but the new versions are the accurate colour palette like in my original pixel art files.

The graphics took way longer than they should. This is due to the way I choose to approach graphics for the game early on. I could have changed course at some point, but that would have meant having to essentially re-do all of the graphics, which may have taken just as long. And the end result for the players would have been the same quality wise. So I committed to the way I originally chose to do the graphics and it was a slog, that may not show in the final product, but I’m happy it’s done and I can move onto other things now.

As to what’s next? In January I’m going to work on finishing the soundtrack. I was also going to work on finishing the sound effects, but instead I’m going do sound effects during the technical polish phase. It definitely is feeling close to release, but it really probably comes down to how long the technical polish phase goes. Will that take 1 month? Will it take 6 months? Hard to say. My latest target is for a Q2 2024 release date, but then again the game always feels 3-6 months away from finishing. At least at this time, I know it’s definitely closer than it was 3 months ago.

In the meantime though, Courier Tale has been selected for an online showcase on Steam, which I’ll announce later this month. Courier Tale could also be in more showcases in the coming months. Courier Tale is also now on Bluesky, so don’t forget to follow @couriertale on your favourite social media spamming network or join the newly transitioned Studio Kraze discord. And if ya haven’t already, make sure to wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

It’s the end of September so it’s time for the Q3 2023 Courier Tale dev blog…

I’m calling Q3 “events season”. At least here in Western Australia, it’s when the 3 main gaming focused conventions happen, and I demo-ed Courier Tale at them all.

First up in July was XR:WA 2023. This was the second time I had done this event. I was in almost the same spot as last year underneath the skeleton of a whale (it’s at the WA Museum). It was good to see some familiar faces from last year as well as new ones. There was also the the Hovergarden international indie showcase there including great games like Mars First Logistics.

I wasn’t originally going to do the next event, Pixel Expo. At the start of the year I had an overly optimistic idea of releasing on 8th of August, which was a few days after Pixel Expo. As such I felt it best to skip that event as no doubt the few days before a release would be too hectic for a solo developer to do an event. However once it became apparent I wouldn’t be releasing in August, a last minute opportunity came up to be able to still exhibit at Pixel Expo.

Then in late September, it was time for the first ever WA Games Week. Courier Tale was actually featured in quite a bit of the WA Games Week promo including on the website, video trailer and Perth Games Festival poster. Courier Tale was also featured on the Yagan Square Digital Tower. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it, but that has to be the biggest screen Courier Tale has been on.

WA Games Week featured a bunch of industry talks, the Level Her Up game jam for women developers, the Immerse VR/AR conference and of course finishing off with Perth Games Festival. This was the 3rd Perth Games Festival I have demo-ed Courier Tale at. My booth came with a banner which I used a new design for. People commented on that being one of the first times they had seen colour in my promo. There is a lot of grey in Courier Tale, but there is some colour as well!

But it wasn’t all just in-person events the past 3 months. Courier Tale was also featured in the Cat Awareness Sale, a digital online showcase on Steam. It was obviously a very niche showcase, but seeing Courier Tale has cats in, it was “purrfect” for the game. It also gave me a chance to share some of the cats the inspired characters in Courier Tale.

During this time, another thing that slowed down progress on Courier Tale was that I started working on my next game prototype. Things have been going well for that prototype so far, up until the news about Unity’s new pricing structure came out a few weeks ago. I had been prototyping the new game in Unity, and the change of pricing prompted me to try out other engines like Godot and Unreal last week. I may still end up using Unity for my next game, but I’ll keep testing other engines until I see what’s best for me and the game. Unlike Courier Tale where I started live streaming development straight away, I’ll probably keep my next project under wraps until the right time. I would like to start working on the next game as soon as Courier Tale is released (while still supporting Courier Tale for the months that follow).

So yeah it’s been a slow quarter for Courier Tale work because of all these other things. The Steam demo was updated to the same version being shown at this year’s conventions which includes things like the new menus and title screen. The focus continues to be finishing off the graphics for Courier Tale. It’s not done yet, but I’m getting close. After graphics are finished I’ll be moving on to sound effects and finalizing the soundtrack. I would like to have both the graphics and sound finished before the end of the year, but hopefully some of the final technical stuff too.

September 10 marked 3 years since I started developing Courier Tale. It should be a milestone, but I feel like such a long time in development doesn’t feel like something to celebrate. Sure a lot of games these days take 5 years to make, some even 10 years. And it hasn’t been 3 years full time, more so closer to 1.5 – 2 years full time. But still, it seems like a big chunk of time for what felt at first to be a small game.

That said, we’re on the homestretch here. After missing the August release, I was hoping for a Q4 release instead, but if I’m realistic about it, it is more likely to be a Q1 2024 release. That’s a shame as I had hoped to release it in 2023, but don’t want to rush it right at the end. With all the events for the year out of the way, it’s heads down finishing Courier Tale now. I may be more quiet over the coming months as I focus on getting the game done, but in the meantime don’t forget to follow @couriertale on your favourite social media spamming network and if ya haven’t already, make sure to wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

2023 has been 50% completed, so it’s time for the Q2 2023 Courier Tale Dev Blog…

Since the last blog the new in-game menu has been finished. There was various iterations, but the one I settled on both feels stable and also matches the visual style of Courier Tale. The new menu looks like a mobile phone which seems suitable for a game about a gig economy courier. This new menu has also introduced a new sub-menu which shows what collector cards you’ve collected. I’ve had people say the demo doesn’t feature any collectables, but the demo does have one collector card in it.

Made a new look mobile phone style in-game menu for Courier Tale, to go along with the theme of working in the gig economy. Also added a new gallery to the menu that shows what cards you've collected…

Wishlist…https://t.co/OoaBqt3aH7#screenshotsaturday #indiedev #pixelart pic.twitter.com/HOf59S6eLt

— Courier Tale (@CourierTale) April 22, 2023

Once the new UI was finished, it was onto graphics polishing. This maybe unsurprisingly has been a slow process. I’m hoping the work I’m doing right now is the final versions of things. While the demo is pretty representative of the final graphics, when the full game went alpha last year, there was actually quite a bit of placeholder graphics in it that I knew I was going to have to update later on. The graphics as of writing is not finished yet, but I’m hoping I’m not too far off finishing the visuals.

Speaking of visuals, if you follow @couriertale on social media, you may have noticed the pixel art tribute series I’ve been doing roughly monthly over the past year. These have been tributes to things that have influenced Courier Tale, or are similar, or just things I like. They’ve been done up in Courier Tale art style. The last one was in May, and that will likely be the last one as I focus on finishing the game. The good news though is you can now purchase Netflix approved merch of my Stranger Things design from Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/140088776 . You can of course also purchase Courier Tale merch from the merch tab on this website.

Remember the Stranger Things Courier Tale style pixel art tribute I created last year? Well now ya can officially purchase clothes, cups, covers & more featuring this design via the Netflix approved fan art program on Redbubble!https://t.co/Yp0c7osa2N#strangerthings #pixelart pic.twitter.com/TU7AlhHLY2

— Courier Tale (@CourierTale) April 2, 2023

Earlier this year I said it was unlikely I’d be showcasing Courier Tale at any more events before launch, but things change and Q3 could possibly see Courier Tale part of a few events, both physical and digital events. Once confirmed these events will be announced here on this website, on social media, email list and the Steam page, so keep an eye out. In the lead-up to the next upcoming event, the demo on Steam will likely be updated with the latest UI and graphics updates. This won’t radically change how the demo plays, so if you’ve already played the demo, there’s no need to again.

So why will Courier Tale be at events prior to launch? I started off today’s blog talking about percentages and there’s an old saying that the last 10% of the work takes 90% of the time. Well that’s certainly seeming somewhat true. Earlier in the year I was aiming for an unannounced August release date, but that won’t be happening. So now Courier Tale is targeting a Q4 2023 release. Hopefully by the time of the next blog in October, I might have a release date to announce.

Until then, I have a bunch more graphics, sound and testing to do, so while I do that, don’t forget to follow @couriertale on your favourite social media spamming network and if ya haven’t already, make sure to wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

January, February and March have been completed for 2023, so that means it’s time for the Q1 2023 Courier Tale Dev Blog…

The start of the year was more so focused on behind-the-scenes work. This culminated in Courier Tale being featured in the RPG Maker Festival 2023 on Steam in February. For this digital event, I made a video talking about the game and its influences. This video was streamed on Steam throughout the week of the event. Eventually, this video will be released on Youtube in case you missed it and wanted a greater insight into Courier Tale. Overall RPG Maker Festival was a success and saw a significant increase in wishlists for Courier Tale.

After RPG Maker Festival, it was back to polishing the game. The focus of the past month or so has been working on UI and menus, which is tricky in this game engine. In the process, a new title screen was created with an animated background. A new in-game menu is in the works, currently iterating on different versions, but should be finished soon. A long-standing visual glitch after selecting a dialogue choice may have finally been solved. I’ve previously mentioned mouse support not being up to the same standard as keyboard or controller, and now I’m more leaning towards removing mouse support. Successful games made in the same game engine don’t have mouse support, so I think it’s just a fact that mouse in this engine is not the best. For now I’ve disabled mouse, but perhaps it could be something re-looked at after the release of the game.

Created a new look title screen for Courier Tale…

Wishlist on Steam…https://t.co/OoaBqt3aH7#screenshotsaturday #indiedev #pixelart pic.twitter.com/MKPJWUqMFr

— Courier Tale (@CourierTale) March 4, 2023

It is hoped this UI work is making the final versions of these menus. These updates haven’t been added to the demo yet. They might not make it into the demo until near the full release of the game, but may be updated if Courier Tale takes part in future digital events before release.

Speaking of events, last blog I said there probably wouldn’t be any more physical events that Courier Tale will exhibit at before release. That is mostly the truth as I try to focus on finishing the game in what is hopefully the homestretch of development. At this stage the only physical event before release that Courier Tale will likely be at is in July.

Speaking of release, the goal/motto of “Delivery in 2023” continues. If all goes well Courier Tale will release in the 2nd half of 2023. Until then, there’s plenty more polishing to do, so while I do that, don’t forget to follow @couriertale on your favourite social media spamming network and if ya haven’t already, make sure to wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

The end of 2022 has been and gone, so it’s now time for another Courier Tale developer blog…

The last quarter of the year was a bit quieter than the previous quarter. However, Courier Tale did exhibit at one event, returning to Perth Games Festival for 2022. Weirdly enough, I was setup in the same spot as last year, but this time with the big Courier Tale banner and wearing a Max shirt. Perth Games Festival is organized by Let’s Make Games, who also organize the Perth edition of Global Game Jam which I used to do in the years leading up to starting developing Courier Tale, so it’s always awesome to return to Perth Games Festival.

As the Perth Games Festival demo had various graphical tweaks, I updated to Steam demo to the same version. If you’ve already played the demo, there’s no need to play again, but if you haven’t played the demo yet, the best version is now available to download on Steam now.

The graphical updates were part of the graphics polishing phase. There’s still a bunch more polishing of the visuals to be done, but it’s good to already see some improvements. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s not another polish pass at some point before the game’s release, but the current tweaks are adding to the visual cohesiveness and populating the world more so.

My last blog’s estimations for release were of course optimistic. I now think Courier Tale’s release is likely to be in the 2nd half of 2023. That’s a good thing as it means more time to polish and test, as well as avoid what could possibly be the most busiest first half of the year for game releases I’ve seen in recent memory. I’m pretty confident in my motto “Delivery in 2023” for Courier Tale, at least for the Windows version. The current plan is to launch on Windows first, then look into Linux, Mac and possibly mobile releases.

At this stage, there are no plans to exhibit Courier Tale at any physical events until after its release later this year. So until then, follow Courier Tale on your favourite spamming social network, play the demo if you haven’t, deliver the Courier Tale news to people you know, and of course, if you haven’t already, wishlist Courier Tale on Steam…

It’s 3/4 time for 2022, so here’s a new Courier Tale Dev Blog…

September saw Courier Tale exhibiting at two events, so polishing the demo and preparing for those events was a focus of the months leading up to that month. Most changes to the demo were unlikely to be noticed by most people, but the Steam demo was updated to match the version shown at these events.

One part of preparing for these events was sorting some marketing elements. I finally printed a big pull-up banner. It’s pretty cool. It features a 1.3 metre Max, which between the large, almost life-size Max and the greyscale nature of the artwork, I think it’s bold and stands out at an event.

The other marketing side of things was doing up some merchandise. There’s Courier Tale shirts because hey, I needed shirts to wear at events. There’s postcards (and greeting cards) because hey, Courier Tale seems like a game that has something in common with postcards. There were also Max stickers and character sticker sheets. I wasn’t 100% happy with the printing of the stickers. When I was looking into merchandise options, I was looking into what would be environmentally friendly avenues. I decided to give print-on-demand a go. While that seemed to be fine for the shirts and cards, the stickers had a few issues. So I decided to remove the stickers from sale online. The stickers still look cool, so I will be selling the remaining stickers from the batch I ordered at future events for cheap. You can order the shirt and cards online still from the merch page on the Courier Tale website.

The first event was a new one called Pixel Expo, an animation and gaming convention at Perth Convention Centre. The shirts didn’t arrive in time, but the banner did. The event was sold out, so I tried out a two-computer demo setup for this event…

The next event was only two weeks later, an AR and VR focused gaming conference/festival called XRWA at WA Museum. While the event has a mixed reality focus, there were traditional video games including a showcase that featured big Australian indie games like Cult of The Lamb as well as international games like A Short Hike, which is one of the influences for Courier Tale. This was a free, two day event and seemed to draw a lot of audience from the visitors of the museum. Pretty unique venue to demo the game in, and my Courier Tale shirt did arrive in time for XRWA..

There’s one more event coming up that Courier Tale will be at in November. That will be the last event for the year, and possibly the last event before the release of Courier Tale. Being in the polish phase right now, the current focus is on graphics, but there are also a bunch of other things to do like sound fx and such. Ideally, the polishing would be finished by the end of the year, with playtesting and release in Q1 2023. Time is not always ideal though, so we’ll see how we go, but that is the target for now.

As usual, if you haven’t already, check out the demo on Steam, wishlist the game and keep an eye out for future Courier Tale news…

It’s the middle of the year, so it is time for another Courier Tale dev blog…

Since the last blog, I’ve tested a full playthrough of the game. It was missing one side quest and one ending, but overall fully playable. As expected, the game is looking to be about 3-5 hours long depending on if you mainline the game or do a completionist playthrough. Having been the only one to playtest the full game so far, it’s hard to know how accurate that time is, but seeing it is what I originally estimated, while I’m sure some people will take less time and maybe some will take longer, I think on average that will probably be the playtime.

Once the game was a fully playable alpha, focus shifted to polishing and improving the demo. The reason for this is Courier Tale took part in the June 2022 edition of Steam Next Fest. There were over 1000 demos featured in this edition, so it was hard to stand out. Still, it saw Courier Tale almost double its wishlists and a massive increase in demo players (compared to when the demo launched a couple of weeks prior to Next Fest). It’s debatable whether the June edition was the best one to be part of, especially as it was during Summer Games Fest, so media was being flooded with game announcements all over the show, but I’m not sure that it would have made much difference waiting til the October edition.

Now that Steam Next Fest is done, we are officially moving into the polish/beta phase of Courier Tale. The first focus has been controls. I normally test the game with controller or keys, and the demo at Perth Games Festival 2021 was played with a controller. Turns out the game engine I use has pretty bad mouse controls by default, which became apparent to me from feedback after the release of the demo online. I’ve also discovered from researching, that games made in this engine seem to mostly remove mouse control because of how hard it is to get it to work as good as controller or keyboard. I would like to keep mouse control if I can. Not only from an accessibility point of view, but also that more and more I feel like the game has similarities to a point and click adventure, so it would be weird to not have mouse support for a game like that. I’ve managed to solve many of the mouse problems so far with various plugins. A big one was allowing the player to walk with a single click and dash with a double click (thanks to Gimmer for this custom plugin). I think I have everything fixed except one thing now. It’s a major thing so if I can’t get that fixed, I may have to do the same as other similar games and remove mouse controls. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but consistency will be paramount.

While there will be tweaks to be made all throughout the game during the polish phase, the main work will be graphics. It’s hard to know for sure how long this polish phase will take, but at this stage I think it could be anywhere between 3-9 months.

In the meantime, if you haven’t already check out the demo on Steam, wishlist the game and keep an eye out for upcoming events…