Why Early Access?

“Early Access makes the most sense for this project. The following are the considerations I've made:

1) I'm a solo indie developer funding this from my own pocket. My resources are limited and I may have blind spots. This is the first commercial game I've ever developed. There may be bugs or hardware configuration issues I need to find and fix before I can feel comfortable calling this game "complete".

2) This is a virtual reality game which is a brand new medium with techniques waiting to be discovered. I'm trying strange new things which may not work. I need willing guinea pigs *ahem* test subjects, who can help me figure out what works and doesn't work. Does something make you sick? Is something super annoying or confusing? Does something break immersion or presence? Tell me about it so I can look into it!

3) I feel this game should be a part of the conversations in the VR community. I'm trying crazy new things in VR which nobody else is doing, and I think this is valuable in shaping the direction and future of VR. I hope what I'm doing inspires other VR developers to copy and improve upon what I'm doing (or avoid it if it doesn't work). It's time to share what I'm working on for the advancement of the VR industry!

4) Accessibility: I'm going to be supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Leap Motion in a wide variety of game play styles. For a solo dev, I'm crazy to try to support so many hardware platforms. But I need to know how to best accommodate as many people as possible so that everyone can enjoy Spellbound. How do you want to play a VR game? How can I build my game to help suit your preferences and play styles?

5) Feedback: I absolutely want to know what people want to see. More spells? More monsters? Smarter AI? Deeper stories? More playable characters? New VR interaction styles? This game isn't just my game... it's all of ours. By being a part of the early access community, you can help nudge the direction this game takes. I'll be actively reading the community forums to hear your thoughts and ideas!

6) The game content is not complete yet. It's not fair to you to launch this in any state other than Early Access. At the same time, it's unwise to continue building game content for a year if it's not going to work. The sooner I know something is not working, the less time I waste working on something which ultimately gets cut. Your feedback helps mitigate my individual biases and blind spots as a developer.

The overarching theme here is experimentation and community feedback.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Spellbound will be in Early Access until the "Red Wizards Tale" story arc has been completed. The content will be released as episodic chapters as they are developed and completed. The amount of production time per chapter will heavily depend on scope of work, access to resources & support, team size (solo dev right now), time constraints, and budget. I'm guessing wildly here, but if each act takes about 3 months to complete and I have 3 chapters, we're looking at about 9 months of development after early access release. Don't trust me though -- This may fluctuate wildly! Us devs are notoriously bad at underestimating the amount of time and effort to finish production, and VR is hard and filled with uncharted territory!

When a story chapter is about 85% complete, it will be made available for you to play through and provide feedback and I will iterate until the chapter is complete and highly polished.”

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

“Spellbound is going to be a series of stories. Each story will be a self contained narrative from the perspective of the story protagonist.

The full version of Spellbound will have a completed, polished story titled "The Red Wizards Tale". This will consist of three acts, which should span a total of 2-3 hours of game play. Each time you play through the story, it will be slightly different (different spells, monsters, etc). The first complete story is going to be a three act series about a red wizard who deals with demons and undead. The theme is elemental magic, darkness, undead, demonology, and friendship. Episodes 2 and 3 will be released as free content updates as they're developed.

Additional stories will be purchasable DLC, and all episodes will be included as a part of that story package as they are developed. These stories will be in the same story universe, but plot lines will rarely (if ever) intersect.

Much, much further down the road, I plan to add streaming and multiplayer support. Players will be able to broadcast a game session and other people will be able to join that session as either spectators or active participants. If you become an active participant, you'll be able to possess the body of a monster and control it (ie, be a zombie, have zombie vision, and think and act like a zombie in VR). There are plans for cooperative mode as well, where multiple wizards can play through the story, but monster spawn frequency increases as well as their toughness (think team fights). Lastly, there is a very rough plan for player vs. player combat using all of the various characters from the stories. Spells and abilities will have to be balanced a bit. Again, this is much further down the road. These future ambitions are very tentative and contingent upon many other real life factors I can't anticipate.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“

As of September 2016:

The Red Wizards Tale

Prelude: Fully playable, Released, 95% complete
Act I: Mostly playable, Unreleased, 80% complete
Act II: Not Ready, 5% complete
Act III: Not Ready, 5% complete

The Sorceress of Light (DLC)

Act I: Not started
Act II: Not started
Act III: Not started

The Necromancers Folly (DLC)

Act I: Not started
Act II: Not started
Act III: Not started

Hardware Configuration Support:

HTC Vive: 100% (fully supported)
Mouse/Keyboard/Gamepad, Monitor: 100% (fully supported)
Oculus Rift: 75% (Need CV1 and Touch)
Leap Motion: 75% (backburner, low priority)”

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

“Honestly, I have no idea if I'm going to change the price in the future. Tentatively, my instinct is to start at a lower price and gradually raise the price to match the value as more content becomes available. You will have full access to each act of "The Red Wizards Tale" as they are released.”

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

“Feedback: How can this game be better? Let me know in the steam forums. I'll try my best to read a lot of posts, but probably won't have time to respond to each one. If there's a really cool idea or a major issue, I'll make sure to let the community know I'm working on it.

Virtual Reality: Do parts of the game cause people to experience motion sickness? Do parts of the game break immersion and presence? What do players think of the locomotion system? How do players prefer to play the game? Standing up? sitting down? Is there a use case that never occurred to me?

Support: If one person has a problem and tells me about it, there are probably ten people who have the same problem but suffer in silence. I need to know if its a systemic problem so I can start working on a patch.”