Courier - A New Indie RPG

I received news about a new Indie RPG called Courier from the games developer Adam Prack. He describes his game as the following, and included a new video.

Experience a Different Kind of RPG

Experience a role-playing game where the focus is on the world, exploration, characters, puzzles, and avoidance instead of battling. Peacefully reverse an evil plot to bring a kingdom to its knees while uncovering ancient secrets, hidden conspiracies, and helping the lives of all in Veilend. Communication routes have been severed and all signs point to retaliation by Veilend's neighboring enemies, the Ignetiles. Help restore routes and stop the conflict from the inside before it erupts into a second war between the two kingdoms.

As a royal courier, you are firstly tasked with handling the deliveries necessary in the village of Pinesboro to the South-West. While there, the entrance to the village, the only bridge out, and other routes used for trade and communication are destroyed overnight. You are tasked with re-opening these routes and set out on a sweeping adventure through a detailed world that takes you to different towns, dungeons, and lands as you set out for adventure.

Gameplay the Courier Way

Courier doesn't have you grinding random enemies to level up. In fact, there are no traditional battles! Gameplay is focused on delivering to and helping people, solving puzzles, overcoming environmental obstacles, and damage avoidance from hazards and traps. You play as a peaceful character in a world traditionally traversed by sword-toting heroes. This makes you consider different ways around problems and to focus on timing and dodging instead of choosing the right attacks or slashing the proper place. It is a unique way to enjoy a fantasy setting while not introducing the tedium of leveling up stats or the heavy violence of combat.

More information.

That does sound interesting, and very hard to make work. But I hope it pans out for all of us

An unique approach in RPG definetly.
I always like to outsmart "enemies" in RPGs when possible (for example SP: Stick of Truth excells in that area) but a complete RPG where your main quest is do exactly that and no fight?

The graphics style is a turnoff after too many (yes couch, too many!) RPGmaker games, but will definetly give this game a shot when it gets released.

* Insert 'FedEx quest' snarky comment here *

And that's worse than kill 23478234542385623478 squirrels, take only one hair from each and bring them to WoW questgiver, right?

Yup, but better than yet another 'Generic Fantasy' setting!

Awww, someone else already made a fedex quest joke. And I thought I was being so clever first thing in the morning.

Well…. the concept appeared interesting but the video appeared boring…

Well its definately different. I'm not sure its my kind of game though.

The game seems fine to me.

All I see is more hate for games just because of the art style, and setting. Anyway thanks to the posters who actually shared their opinion.

Concept sounds promising in theory, (although it comes across like a less interesting "You Are Not the Hero") but I'm concerned that it won't be anything more than endless fetch quests, which is no less tedious than endless grinding with respawning enemies.

Anyway, according to the developer's website Courier will be a browser-based (HTML5) game and that it will be free-to-play with in-app purchases (i.e., pay to win). If this is still the plan, who in their right mind is going to pledge for a "copy" of a f2p browser game? Of course, none of this is apparent from the Kickstarter, so either the official website is outdated, or the Kickstarter is misleading.

Looks cool. Definitely a different take on the genre. Gotta give people credit for trying something new. Hope it works out for them.

Belittle 16 bit era JRPG combat all you want, but IMO playing such a game where I can't engage in turn based monster beatdowns seems as exciting as watching portal LPs on youtube.

Using the "kill 100 rats and take their tails back" excuse is lame. That's PC MMO combat, not JRPG. Fact is, as much of a PC gamer I am, I always loved the simplistic approach to combat you find in Chrono Trigger and the early Final Fantasies.

Basically, this game looks abysmally boring without combat.

Originally Posted by DungeonHack
Belittle 16 bit era JRPG combat all you want, but IMO playing such a game where I can't engage in turn based monster beatdowns seems as exciting as watching portal LPs on youtube.

Using the "kill 100 rats and take their tails back" excuse is lame. That's PC MMO combat, not JRPG. Fact is, as much of a PC gamer I am, I always loved the simplistic approach to combat you find in Chrono Trigger and the early Final Fantasies.

Basically, this game looks abysmally boring without combat.

Right on. Bring back the rats!

Originally Posted by DungeonHack
Belittle 16 bit era JRPG combat all you want, but IMO playing such a game where I can't engage in turn based monster beatdowns seems as exciting as watching portal LPs on youtube.

Using the "kill 100 rats and take their tails back" excuse is lame. That's PC MMO combat, not JRPG. Fact is, as much of a PC gamer I am, I always loved the simplistic approach to combat you find in Chrono Trigger and the early Final Fantasies.

Basically, this game looks abysmally boring without combat.

Japanese games were not limited to turn based combat. They featured games with real time combat like Y'S.

This said, studios are interested in this kind of old games because they are on the low side from the technical point of view. Which can be easily reproduced (only big corporations can push the throttle on the technical side)

Those old games though, especially japanese games with a borderline manic approach, were on the high side in terms of gameplay.

Which the new versions cant match as the gameplay was the result of thousand of hours of play testing.

It is better those games try to find their own formula as they cant match the big corporations on the technical side and cant match the old production on the gameplay side.