“If the sales don’t stagnate, we can actually live off of this”: Dev of open-world horror game says “lifelong dream” may come true after promising early access launch
Envelope is out now on Steam
Norwegian developer Skaar Game Productions is enthusiastic about early access sales for its new open-world horror game Envelope, emphasizing the importance of community support for independent games.
"If the sales don't stagnate, we can actually live off of this [game]," Skaar writes on Twitter. "Keep streaming and uploading videos, everything helps a lot. Even a single sale is very valuable to us.
"My lifelong dream of making games for a living is so close!" the developer continues.
Low-poly horror Envelope follows a convenience store clerk on a deadly mission to save his girlfriend. You'll guide him through a small open world as rotten as his prospects to complete missions and achieve one of multiple possible endings.
"We will keep updating the game," Skaar says. "It's still just in early access, so it will improve even more over the next few weeks."
Early Steam reviews seem promising.
"The idea is very neat, really like the concept of having an open-world that is of a manageable size and where you can decide what to do or not," says a popular review.
"It's a very bizarre game with equally strange NPCs," adds another recent review. "Not really the kind of game I usually play, but once I started, I didn't stop till I got to the end, so it's clearly doing something right."
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In a Reddit post earlier this year, Skaar described Envelope as "our first commercial product."
"We have high hopes for it," the developer explains. "Working professionally as game developers is a lifelong dream for both of us, and finally it seems like the dream will come true."
Take a look at some upcoming horror games for 2024 and beyond.
Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.