Why Early Access?

“We have chosen to release a public Early Access in order to receive feedback and form a community around the game - dungeon crawlers and roguelites are both common genres, and we want to see what the community thinks and what the criticisms of the game will be so that we can hopefully make the game the best of its genre, and give it more unique characteristics to make it stand out from the rest. We think the best way to do this is to distribute the game widely, so that we can receive large amounts of feedback for it, more than can be received from beta testers alone.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“The game will likely be in Early Access for between two to five years.”

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

“The full version of Aspect will aim to have a lot of replay ability, so is currently planned to feature:

• More enemies to fight.
  
• More weapons to fight them with (with a variety of new fun attack types to play with).
  
• More combat mechanics, such as blocking attacks, and enemies with phased attacks.
  
• More Aspects to collect, and a complementary accessory system, which will better allow for innovative synergies between items, and give players a lot more ways to play the game.
  
• More cave types to explore, and bosses for some of these caves (including plans for a dungeon crawler trope - a giant worm boss, as well as a currently in-development Glowflower cave that we hope to release to Early Access in the next version).
  
• More special features (such as the pickaxes in rocks already present in the game).
  
• More shopkeepers and interesting NPCs, as well as increased functionality for the existing ones.
  
• Milestone floors, with unique challenges.
  
• More music, to match each cave type.
  
• Simple cinematics interspersed throughout the game.
  
• A variety of new achievements to collect, to encourage playing the game in different ways.

It is also planned to feature:

• Player customisation.
  
• Localisation.
  
• Improved controller support.
  
• Reworks of several systems currently in game.

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“From a gameplay perspective, the current early access version is in a state where we believe it is a snapshot of what can be expected of the game - a large portion of the core systems planned for the game are in place, and there are a few examples of ways to interact with these in the game. As of version 0.2.2, there are 5 unlockable Aspects, 13 enemies, 2 cave types, 36 weapons, and 23 achievements are in the game. We hope this can provide a glimpse of the final game (but with far far less content than the final game is planned to have). From a development perspective, the game is currently slightly beyond a foundational stage - many of the core systems are in place and the infrastructure necessary to add masses of new content is mostly in place, however we do intend to rework certain systems in game. The current content is available to see in the "About This" section.”

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

“It is likely that the price will rise after the game leaves Early Access, though no concrete plans for this have been made yet. The price should stay fairly consistent across future Early Access versions, but it may increase towards the end of development as we get closer to leaving Early Access, or when we do leave it. It is unlikely that the price would increase at any point after this.”

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

“There is a link to the bug report form on the main menu of the game, so players can report any bugs they find, or give any feedback they have. We will read all reports we get, so your suggestions will be seen, and may make it into the game. We also have a Discord server, where we will take submissions for ideas for the game's future content, and we also recruit beta testers in this server to help us make the game the best it can be. In the future we plan to promote the game more widely and build a fanbase on several social media platforms, too.”