Why Early Access?

“Our ambition is to produce the worlds foremost example of how to achieve a community first game. Metaphorically we have reached an internal precipice where we have completed so many features to early stages that they are now boiling over and we need to pour those out into a nice hot cup of game play stew and serve it with a virtual story sandwich to get feedback on how to pair our release menu for version one. We will leverage community feedback and iterative design to narrow down our feature list to a best of the best set and wrap that into a version one - built by the community for the community.

Simply said, we have tons of ideas and proof of concept features completed. Now we need to return to our community perspective and begin implementing those into a single game play experience to get feedback and together as one we can complete this thing to ready to release.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Our best guess is May 1st 2020. It can be sooner or later based on community feedback, but picking a year out from our early access start date gives us a big old target to easily hit and not let anyone down.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“In early access we are only delivering slices of the final product. The full version will offer a experience that matches our goals of a massive world, with many interaction points leading to an immersive experience. In game EduTECH will allow players to reach advanced interaction and immersion that push the boundaries of cinema and gaming such that they become - one community based experience that touches all of our target demographics; single player, the family, office and biz and the ultimate goal of supporting large communities that can engage within at the scale of esports today.

Mainly the full game will offer a welcome environment for any play style. A casual player that just wants to do mini games and unlock a big world can still have fun here. At the same time another player can use CommunityUs as a one stop shop for education and entertainment fulfillment.

The full product will offer an open world with a workshop API that allows anything to happen. We will then offer a core set of those features as a playable starting experience so as not to overwhelm the uninitiated. Unwilling to water down the game play the rest of the almost done features will be added à la carte through the Community Hub and Steam Workshop. Through discussions there and in sub groups we will really begin doing the work of community building and support. This is our ultimate goal, to bring communities together in a fun way and help them.

To give a sort list of early Steam Workshop features planned:

• Action Support - script in game objects i.e. doors through API
  
• Audio Import - .ogg and MIDI Player
  
• Event API - listen and respond to events and have those talk to actions above
  
• C#/Javascript/Lua planned for the workshop.

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“You will get a playable slice or playable slices. The point is to offer as much of the experiences we want to offer as possible so we can begin getting feedback on what to prioritize for the final polish before release. We do plan to openly announce and direct this dialogue with our player base through announcements and steam discussions/forums.

Pre-alpha Features:

• Character creation
  
• Massive world
  
• Retro 16 bit, low poly content
  
• Streaming world
  
• Steam Workshop integration
  
• Foundational world interaction and core game play mechanics in pre-alpha state.

Core game play features working:

• Standalone Scenes
  
• Classic Enemies
  
• Classic Weapons
  
• World Time
  
• Climate & Season
  
• Storytelling
  
• Music

”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Free to Play”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“When multiplayer is flushed out the developers will just be available in game chat getting live feedback as one source, but until then...

Steam discussions to get feedback on the good or bad.
Specialized Steam groups with different focus areas to polish the player experience while in per-release.

Link to our Steam Discussions forum:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1062330/discussions/0/”