Why Early Access?

“I'm a completely self funded game developer, so all revenue I get from all of my games that have been published to date go into the development of the games I am currently making, so funds from Containment Protocol and Blast Em! go into the development of Caretaker. Once Caretaker is out funds from that will go into the development of Containment Protocol, so to make it clear, if you are buying the early access version of Containment Protocol you are funding development of Caretaker which is my priority project at the moment.

The more ambiguous approach is that in reality all the projects share a lot of the same code so it's actually funding them all at the same time but I don't want to give any false impressions. To clear up any further confusion, any revenue generated from sales of my games supplements the funds I have to develop Caretaker - I am not reliant on sales of my games to fund my development, they are a bonus - a very much appreciated one and I can't thank you enough for purchasing a copy and having faith in me.

Further development in Containment Protocol is not dependent upon Caretaker being a success, Caretaker being a success just means development on Containment Protocol happens a lot faster as I don't have to take on contract work to generate the funds.

I develop my games on my own, I don't have a team of developers. I out-source things like VO and audio but everything else I do myself which means all code, art, marketing and PR. At the moment I have two games in active development, this one and Caretaker.

Containment Protocol was a long time in the Greenlight process and while it was there waiting to be cleared I started to work on Caretaker as a recreational project, I never intended it to become a fully fledged game. Caretaker got a lot of praise and managed to attract the attention of my favourite sci-fi actor, David Hewlett (Stargate Atlantis) to work on it. Containment Protocol was still waiting to be green-lit so I signed up David and committed to making Caretaker. As I need to complete Caretaker in a shorter period of time it had to take priority over Containment Protocol but as soon as it is finished I am back on this game full time.

Why Early access? I kept being asked by people when is it coming to Steam... I had a complete 20 minute vertical slice version of the game that is completely playable from beginning to end so to satisfy the many requests to have it on steam I decided to release it here. The full game will be added to on a semi-regular basis and full time development started once I've completed work on Caretaker.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Development will resume on Containment Protocol in January 2016 and hopefully finished a few months after that.”

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

“The Early Access build shows a snapshot of the gameplay. The final version will expand upon what is seen here to provide a vast facility and a lot more puzzle elements to solve to find out what happened. This includes things like more defence mechanisms to disable, fires to extinguish to proceed and more story to unravel via terminals to be hacked. I am currently aiming for at least 3 hours of gameplay.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“It's a complete snapshot of 5 gameplay elements: Bombs to diffuse, sentry robots to evade, doors to be opened and some of the story.”

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

“The early access version will be 50% of the full version.”

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

“I make games for people to play and I want them to have fun playing them. Given the nature of Containment Protocol I'd love the community to come on board and give feedback/suggestions on how to improve on what's already there. What do they like? What do they hate? What would they love to see added? Is the story needed or does it just get in the way? How should the facility be expanded - what kind of sections should it have?”