On September 18, Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask becomes free on Steam and GOG. Permanently, there is no way back to a price tag!

This is where Saint Kotar started.

We released The Yellow Mask in June 2020, for free, alongside the launch of the Saint Kotar Kickstarter campaign. It was our argument, made in the only way that counts: here are the two protagonists, here is this cursed rural town, here is the hand-painted art and the branching structure, play it and decide for yourself. It worked. On July 20, 2020, Saint Kotar was fully funded with five days still left on the clock, and we went on to unlock stretch goals from there. Without The Yellow Mask, there is a very real chance there would be no Saint Kotar.

We retired it in 2021. During development the opening of the game was rewritten, technically improved and redesigned, and the prologue quietly lost its job: it no longer led into the game it was built to introduce. We brought it back in January 2023, this time with a price on it, less than a cup of coffee. That was a deliberate decision taken at a delicate moment. Saint Kotar had launched in October 2021, and for a small studio the period after a release is the one that decides whether you get to make the next thing. The Yellow Mask brought in a small amount month after month, and at that point every bit of it mattered. That period is behind us. The revenue from The Yellow Mask has become irrelevant to the studio, and the only thing the price does now is keep people from playing it. So we're removing it.

What The Yellow Mask is today is a preserved piece of Saint Kotar's history: around three hours, two playable characters in Benedek Dohnany and Nikolay Kalyakin, a branching story where your words and choices change what you see, hand-painted art, full voice acting and an original soundtrack. It is the original idea, before it grew into something different. If you've finished Saint Kotar, it's a look at the version that came first. If you haven't, it is now the easiest possible way into Sveti Kotar.

The Saint Kotar: Supporter Pack DLC stays free and comes with it, exactly as it has since 2023.

One piece of housekeeping. Alongside this change we're retiring the Kickstarter Special Edition bundle on Steam and GOG. With The Yellow Mask free, the bundle has nothing left to do. Saint Kotar: The Crawling Man, the interactive comic book that was part of it, remains available on its own. And to everyone who bought The Yellow Mask over the past three years: thank you. You paid for something we can now afford to give away, and the timing of that support was not a small thing. Everyone who owns it keeps it, as always.

See you in Sveti Kotar! Hoping that one day we may return to it with a sequel or prequel...