Spanning nearly 70 pages, The Art of Saint Kotar includes many materials that have never been revealed in public before. It's a book that showcases a selection of ideas, research materials, concept artwork, and final artwork. Years of work and passion put on paper. Much of what you see in there didn't make it to the final game, yet it was still helpful in reaching the end.
The Sound of Saint Kotar includes a total of 22 tracks, both in MP3 and WAV format, featured in the base game and The Ritual DLC. Its mysterious atmosphere and creaking noises will set the mood to play Saint Kotar, or, for that matter, any work with a mysterious premise.
The original Saint Kotar Prologue is Back!
Many have asked for it, we delivered. The original prologue Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask is back on the store! ːsteamhappyː
During the development of the main game Saint Kotar, the beginning of the game was rewritten, technically improved and redesigned, and in that process Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask lost its true meaning as a prologue. Now it serves as a nostalgic trip to the past and to show the original idea that grew into something different.
Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask is not free anymore, like it used to be before we retired it in 2021. It's not expensive either. It'll cost you less than a cup of coffee, and for the price you also get the Supporter Pack DLC for free! This way you get both for one single (low) fee and you support our work.
Lastly, you can buy the Saint Kotar Kickstarter Special Edition bundle that includes:
The Bundle gives you a nice discount on the games and a deeper understanding of the Saint Kotar background story and world. The eccentric character that goes by the name Mojse is at the centre of the plot in The Yellow Mask and the main protagonist of the interactive comic book The Crawling Man. Plots from both are interconnected between them, as well as with the main game Saint Kotar.
Enjoy!
Patch Notes v1.41
Yeah, baby! Back by popular demand: the original prologue The Yellow Mask is back on the store, now with the Supporter Pack DLC included for free - wohoo! This patch includes just small visual UI changes and general improvements. Enjoy!
Saint Kotar launching next week!
There's only 7 days left until Saint Kotar launches! We can't wait until you'll all be able to enter Sveti Kotar and face the mysteries it has to offer. Currently we're working hard on the final polishes to finish the experience for launch on the 28th, but there's also a launch trailer coming up next week!
Of course, if you haven't already, make sure to add Saint Kotar to your Steam wishlist to be notified next week when the game comes out.
Important
We're about to permanently delist Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask store page. This was already mentioned in a few previous posts, but the reason for doing it is that the prologue doesn't reflect the quality the full game achieved. It's not relevant anymore; the main game evolved into something much bigger and better! So be sure to follow us there and wishlist the main game:
Say hello to October, the month of release of Saint Kotar, and to Next Fest - the official Steam event that celebrates upcoming indie video games.
Saint Kotar PC Demo available now
As part of the Steam Next Fest October edition we've made available a fully voice acted, brand new, never-seen demo of Saint Kotar. Aside the two main characters and the town of Sveti Kotar, this demo has nothing to do with Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask (the demo/prologue we released in June 2020).
Go play it, get a taste of what's coming on October 28th:
Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask store page to be delisted
The heading says it all: this store page is going to be taken down soon.
The reason: The Yellow Mask does not represent the level of quality Saint Kotar (the full game) has now. The only elements that are still relevant are the art, the atmosphere and parts of the story. Everything else, like the character animations, gameplay/narrative design, dialogs and much more, have been changed and vastly improved.
Believe us: Saint Kotar the full game is a game on another technical, art and narrative level. Keeping The Yellow Mask alive would be like shooting ourselves in the foot. We gathered every single feedback you gave us and we worked from there to make a better game. Simple as that.
And if you are wondering what we did in the last 12-ish months:
Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask is a game that has 10 locations and 1 hour of gameplay time
Saint Kotar the full game has 120+ locations and an average gameplay time of 20 hours
It is simple as that, but we have to thank you for the feedback! You made the full game better. Now, this leads us to...
Saint Kotar full game release date
Prepare for a spooky, weird and heartbreaking Halloween this year - Saint Kotar is coming to PC on October 28 2021!
Investigate a disappearance in the occult-ridden town of Sveti Kotar, die (yes, you can die in Saint Kotar), find hidden locations and special items that can help you solve puzzles in different ways, change fates of people and euthanize or denounce them. Saint Kotar is ready to blow your mind on October 28!
We released a big number of never seen in-game screens. Some of them are below this text, just to give you a taste of them, while the rest are available under the full game's store page.
New key art, release month and teaser for Saint Kotar
Time flies! Saint Kotar is entering the Beta stage very soon and we even have the release month, along with a brand new key art and teaser trailer.
Important - The Yellow Mask page to shut down soon
Huge improvements and new features have been done and added to the full game Saint Kotar. We think that the prologue doesn't reflect anymore the game as it should. The story hasn't changed, the atmosphere is still the same, and the mood is still dark and creepy. We've kept all the good parts from the prologue while working on others and adding new stuff.
Having said that, we decided this store page, the page of the prologue Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask, will be shut down soon. A new demo of the full game will be made available for free, not here, but on the store page of the full game.
If you haven't already, visit the Saint Kotar's store page and click to follow and add the game to your wishlist. This will ensure that you don't miss out on any of the upcoming news and updates leading up to the game's release this Autumn!
The two protagonists are back on the cover. How do you like it? Comment below!
Teaser Trailer
If you played the prologue this teaser will be very familiar to you. It was created to attract new players rather than showing something new to the existing ones. Still, we like it very much! More trailer(s) will be released before the game comes out, showing never-seen stuff.
https://youtu.be/KnaRdELPc9Y
Release Date
Saint Kotar is coming out, of course, this October, in the spookiest month of the year! More news coming soon about the precise date so that you can mark it on your calendar.
SOEDESCO and Red Martyr Entertainment partner to launch Saint Kotar!
The BIG announcement is finally here - Saint Kotar has a publisher!
We're pleased to be teaming up with SOEDESCO for the launch of our first title: Saint Kotar. We've been working on this game for two and a half years now and we feel confident that SOEDESCO is the perfect partner we needed to support its growth into something special. Together we'll work to launch the game on PC and consoles very soon.
Publishing Agreement
We can't go into specific details here, but as a general overview I can confirm that everything we promised in the Kickstarter campaign (and some more) will be delivered.
Saint Kotar is coming to PC and consoles, with a specific date to be announced soon. The game will be fully voiced (in English) and localized into all the languages that were unlocked with the stretch goal (plus an X number of additional ones). Marketing, PR, distribution, porting to consoles and all other much needed elements that are part of a professional project, are in this agreement.
About SOEDESCO
SOEDESCO is an independent video game developer, publisher and distributor founded in 2002 with its headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Their portfolio consists of titles such as Owlboy, Kaze and the Wild Masks, Monster Crown, Among the Sleep, Remothered: Tormented Fathers and Monstrum. They also have their own IPs, including Truck Driver®, Adam’s Venture® and Real Farm.
For more information visit the official website: www.soedesco.com
On June 18th, 2020 the Saint Kotar project was launched on Kickstarter. It was the accursed 2020, the year of Covid. A year everyone wants to forget or put in a bad place. We will certainly remember it forever as it was not only our first Kickstarter campaign, but the first ever game project we started. A year later, things are going preeeetttyy gooood!
Alpha Stage
So, one year later, we can proudly announce that Saint Kotar has entered the Alpha stage of production! Wait, what? Not a big deal? What is the Alpha stage? Each studio has its own way to define the stages of production, so a common definition that everyone abides to doesn't really exist. It is a big deal because the Alpha stage, at least in our case, means:
the game is playable from start to finish. Side tasks are not yet implemented (just a few of them), but the entire critical path is.
all characters and locations are obviously implemented, but still need additional work to make them look the way you, and we, want them to look.
all soundtracks are implemented.
the User Interface is pretty much final.
In the Alpha stage bugs are a common thing, sound effects and character animations are mostly missing, locations don't have a final look, dialogs and puzzles are not final (they are just a first draft), etc etc. Plenty of work awaits, but if we are here, it means nothing can stop us anymore to get to the finish line!
Some Juicy Facts
Just fired out:
game has a total number of 126 locations!
you can die in Saint Kotar, numerous times. Almost all deaths have a unique death cutscene.
on top of the big number of locations, the game also has dozens of closeups, which is a feature the prologue was missing soooo much.
first Alpha playtesters say the game is great. Yes, they say it is great and that the story is awesome. Let's calm down though, we still have a long road ahead of us, but seeing these feedback is certainly encouraging and exciting!
Demo and Full Game Release Dates
Our original plan was to release a new demo/prologue in June. The plan has changed and at the moment we don't have a new date. The full game release remains set for August, for now. Don't panic, if something changes, it won't change drastically because it's just not possible.
Saint Kotar status update + Insight into the process of creating locations
Status of the project
Hello, spring! The weather is getting warmer, the days longer, and Saint Kotar richer with content and closer to release. How poetic! But it is the truth, there are lots of stuff going on behind the curtains and the development is progressing fine. So far we've created a big number of new locations, all the characters and some, but not all, the animations for them. Except for the below screenshot, there's nothing else juicy to show at the moment, but we are getting there, and the next post update might include some early gameplay footage. So stay tuned!
All the ideas/concepts we explored back when we were creating the new official cover of Saint Kotar:
Find Your Humanity
#FindYourHumanity is our new marketing campaign that we've launched last week. The goal we set is to reach new players and raise awareness about Saint Kotar, as in our recent research we found out there are lots of people who like this combination of a dark story in a point & click adventure genre (not all of them have to be comedy, right?), but have never heard of this project. Help us to reach them, get the word out and invite people to visit the game's store page on Steam to add the game to their wishlist. Clicking on "Follow" on helps too. Adding the game and following it there allows players to get notified about the release discount as well as the news regarding the upcoming new version of the demo/prologue.
[previewyoutube="21Pbhndsw1c;full"]
The 4 Stages of Locations
Written by our artist Mirko Ćalušić:
Painting a background for Saint Kotar is rarely an easy thing, not only because we put great care to make our scenes look as good as possible but also because it is a dynamic process, requiring constant collaboration between the artist, writer and programmer. Every background must not only look good in an illustrative sense, but it also needs to fulfill gameplay and story needs. To make things easier for ourselves, we approach the creation of every scene in clearly delineated stages.
[previewyoutube="9iKgXH4pq-A;full"]
Step 1
The first step consists of research and gathering reference. Since the world of Saint Kotar is based on a real region in Croatia, for most of our backgrounds we gather photo reference from real locations. Along with the gathered reference, a scene usually begins with a tentative description of its appearance and the story/gameplay elements on the scene.
Step 2
The second step is creating quick concepts to define the compositional elements of the scene. These concepts are usually very rough and sketchy, and painted in black and white, but they do a good job at giving us an impression of what the scene will look like. Once we are happy with the overall look, we begin with creating the polished scene assets.
Step 3
Although all of our scenes are digitally painted 2D images, Unity is in essence a 3D engine, and our characters are 3D models which move in the three dimensions of space. This makes it crucial for our 2D assets to be fairly accurate in regard to perspective and scale. Thus, our backgrounds are painted over a 3D base created in Blender. This base not only helps our artist paint in the right perspective, but it is also used directly in-engine by our programmer to help define walkable areas, interactive hotspots, etc. Sometimes the 3D base is very detailed, other times it is little more than a few boxes that stand in for more complex landscape elements. Either way, the next step is painting over the 3D base. We use a lot of photobashing and texturing in order to be ale to create our highly detailed scenes, but we also take great care not to make things look too banally realistic and boring, and to preserve a hand painted feel. This step is by far the most time consuming. A lot of revisions are done during this stage – sometimes changes in the script necessitate modifications to the scene, and sometimes the opposite is the case: a painted scene can give us some surprising new gameplay and story ideas. It can also happen that a finished scene simply does not work as intended in game. All of this requires us to go back to the drawing board and redo certain elements.
In-game screenshot of Grimalda, a castle used by the Inquisition in the 15th century:
Step 4
The final step consists of creating animations and effects. A painted background looks pretty, but it is, of course, static. We put in a lot of effort to imbue our scenes with motion and life: lapping waves on the lake, rolling fog, flocks of birds, clouds gliding across the sky, and so on. These effects were made using a variety of methods. For fog, smoke, clouds, flames, etc. we use particle effects in Unity. For our water effects we made a shader that makes our 2D water look almost three-dimensional. Most of our animations are created externally. Some are rendered in Blender, others are hand-painted in Photoshop. Either way, they are imported as sprite animations into Unity. Where it was necessary, we also used a few 3D models directly in Unity. Our approach is flexible, and it always depends on the needs of the scene.
And... that's it! Hopefully we’ve given you an interesting insight into our process. With your continuous support, we'll continue creating many more wonderful places in the world of Saint Kotar and beyond.
