Why Early Access?

• TRS96K will try a democratic, voting-based approach for some of its features, tools, gameplay mechanics and content. An early access version suits this purpose.
  
• The content is still flexible at this point. The broad strokes are already defined, but the users will be involved to add or vote details / agree with directions the games will move to.

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

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

• Additional gameplay in the final product: fully tweak sound (volume, pitch, tape speed, revert, ...)
  
• A lot more data recoverty tricks on analogue level (header swap, audio channel swap, leader shortcircuit, ...). Fully working tape player & tweak apps. Major Improvements in other existing apps and inclusion of new ones.
  
• Play with data on digital level (descramble, decrypt, decode, search, piece together, ...)
  
• A lot more tapes are to be expected.
  Goatsketcher is just the opening act of the whole TRS96K experience. Each episode (or tape group) in the final version will be an improvement over the previous one, but also as different as possible in terms of content.
  
• Mixtapes are planned for the near future and will also be an important part of the final version.
  
• Hardcore philosophy. Existential questions will be part of the final game content.
  
• Corruption-proof auto-save functionality. Watching out for "saving icons" will not be required.
  
• [votable]Normal difficulty mode for players who succeeded at least once in their lifetimes to load data from an audio tape.
  
• [votable]Hard difficulty mode for players who need no assists, little help and like to load data as it was originally intended: 48KB in 5 mins.
  TRS 96K will allow hardcore users to put the game in the background and react on audio queues so they can focus on something else during load.
  
• Invented conspiracy theories.
  
• Mock advertising.
  
• [votable]New functionality can be suggested by users, assessed by the dev in terms of effort/risk and then voted by the whole user community.
  
• True tried and tested eye care advice for the player.
  
• Discover and assemble tape stories, fake art, real art, conspiracy theories, ...
  
• Minigames.

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

• Enjoy using a real simulated tape player with all the proper buttons (play, stop, ff, rew).
  
• Turbo tape loading speed speed of up to 1.6 kb/s.
  
• 8bit applications.
  
• Tutorials available for players without previous experience on loading data off tapes.
  
• Skippable tutorials for advanced players.
  
• Work and suffer for a pittance as an EES employee with an absurd boss and (semi-)impossible tasks.
  
• Audio tapes holding data with multiple degrees of corruption.
  
• Game content is limited to the first 2 tape groups: Tutorial and Goatsketcher.
  
• A good part of game resources (sounds, images, artwork, apps, story elements, ...) included only as placeholders.
  
• Gameplay mechanics are in their initial and simplified form.
  
• This software is an work in progress and may exhibit bugs/defects. If possible, please report any bugs to us using the available channels.
  
• Texts and emails contained in the software might contain spelling / grammar inconsistencies.
  
• No music mixtapes are available in the current release, but are planned for the near future.

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

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

• TRS96K will try a democratic, voting-based approach for some of its features, tools, gameplay mechanics and content.
  Examples:
  
  • In the story, all the applications of TRS96K are implemented by a single developer, Goghe. He's constantly tired & overworked and bugs are unavoidable.
    Some of the bugs will be part of of the gameplay and especially developed.(ff/rew buttons of the tape player might stop working for specific tapes).
    Question: Are non-critical, non-annoying bugs better left in to free time so that more content is added ?
    
  • Would you prefer frequent releases resulting in additional effort for stabilization that reduces the effective content? Or use of time more efficiently by having infrequent releases with more content?
• Users will be able to submit bugs, suggest content, vote on other players or dev's suggestions.