Cantata 1.0 Released!
Out of Early Access and onward to a post-1.0 world!
A journey that started nearly a decade ago is finally coming to a close as today Cantata is officially released into 1.0 on Steam.
To all of you that have been with us since the very beginning, thank you. The belief people held early on that this was a game worth playing and the comments and feedback given to the game from that point up until now have not only helped me continue what has turned out to be an incredibly ambitious and admittedly weird game, but have helped to better shape what the game actually is.
As you can likely see from this email as well, we’ve changed newsletter provider and are now on Substack! The newsletter itself has been rebranded as The Afterschool Studio Newsletter to better reflect that this is not only the gathering point for Cantata, but a place for us to track the ongoing development around other projects (some exciting NEW things that are as of yet unannounced).
We’re also happy to announce that today marks the release of the Dreamwalker edition of Cantata!
In addition to the game itself, the Dreamwalker edition contains an absolutely MASSIVE soundtrack for the game:
Cantata’s composer, Royal Teague, went all out for this, and we’re so happy to offer a way for the music to be listened to outside the scope of the game itself. This thing also goes as well, and is full of music that totally stands up on its own while also conveying the texture of the game it’s pulled from. It’s that good listening, if you know what I’m saying. We even snuck a few tracks on here that aren’t even in the game! We can’t help ourselves!
With all that said, I again want to thank everyone that’s been on this journey with us since the alpha launched all those years ago. I’ve personally learned a ton about game development and design (and business!) in those years, and for all that stuck through until now, thanks for believing in me and thanks for believing in Cantata.
(If you purchase and play, please leave us a positive review! It seriously helps the game standout on Steam’s backend and will help it find more players!)
As Cantata crests out of Early Access and into 1.0, we’re obviously thinking about the future of the game and what it will hold. We’ve got some really interesting ideas in the pipe that we’ll be relying on the community again to help us navigate, so if this sounds interesting to you, definitely subscribe below to be notified when that (and some other things around REDACTED) are announced!
Thanks so much for reading and following us along this journey. For now, enjoy your time on Shoal, discover its mysteries, and we’ll talk again soon!