Play a tanuki postman in rural Japan with Cursed To Golf creator's next game

rockpapershotgun.com:

"Tanuki" and "postman" are the two magic words to get me excited about any video game. Tanukis are cute and mischievous. Posties get to participate in adrenaline-inducing activities like meeting new people. Combine the two and that's your pitch for Project Tanuki, the codenamed next game from the creator of the great Cursed To Golf. Check out the brief teaser below.

Project Tanuki is in development at an all-new Kyoto-based indie studio called Denkiworks. The three-person team was co-founded by Cursed To Golf director Liam Edwards with programmer Jan De Graaf and designer Taku Arioka, who happens to be a Kyoto native. That mix of backgrounds is important since they say they plan to make games with an "'East meets West' perspective". The three met at Japanese studio Q-Games while working on Pixeljunk Scrappers.

Project Tanuki is "inspired by our experience of life in Japan, coming from an expat and native perspective," says Edwards in a press release. "It's essentially a love letter to this country and its beautiful culture," Edwards continued, "We all have an idealised vision of what Japan is, especially its stunning countryside, popularised in art and media over centuries. Project Tanuki will be our take on that!"

As you can tell from the trailer, the game has a gorgeous countryside setting and a very serious racoon dog. I'll also take a wild swing and assume that we'll be delivering post - unless the game's hiding a terrifying plot twist behind its cute exterior, Bugsnax-style.

There have been a truckload of great postal delivery games in the last few years and I'm hoping that our new tanuki friend can join that package. Recent postventures have included the cottagecore platformer Mail Time, the