Why Early Access?

“We are developing this game with our community in mind, and want to deliver a fully balanced and full featured experience for 1.0.
Games of this nature are unique in the way that power scaling and unexpected combinations and permutations can impact the feel in a very large way. There are more combinations of farm builds then there are stars in the universe, so we are planning the early access to be a period of rapid testing and iteration to provide very frequent balancing patches.
The game is already fully playable, but we need community feedback to continue to balance the mechanics. This will require our player feedback to be acted upon and tested quickly, which is appropriate for Early Access.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Expecting to stay in EA for a year.”

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

“The early access version of the game is fully playable with unlimited permutations and ways to build your farm. Every unique weapon and enemy type in the early access version is tuned already to maximize the challenge and bring emergent methods of play to light. We are proud of how fun and engaging the game is already, however, the sheer amount of possibilities require an early access for deep tuning and player feedback.

By the time we are ready for 1.0 launch, we will have a balanced system and everything tuned for the right feeling of difficulty and fun. We fully expect that by 1.0, we will have as many as twice the number of enemies and brand new plants and weapons that have emerged from the feedback from the community. This means that during this period of testing and player feedback, the game is growing in both depths and breadth. ”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Currently, the game is fully playable starting from your first day as a farmer, all the way through the final stage with one main boss. After you win, you have the option to continue, much like many other rogue-like games with power scaling. The end-game is filled with an ever impossibly scaling horde of enemies to defeat and players can enjoy infinite replayability from the endless number of permutations that the game has. No two runs will ever be the same! There are over 10 weapons and defenses to build, five distinct enemy types, and a final boss, and a farm that procedurally generates a new seeded run every time. The graphics and sound are in, controls are snappy, and overall the game just looks and plays great. We will iterate and improve on all of these systems of course as we are using the early access period to iterate and improve the balance of the game, but the early access game will not stand out as a sloppy prototype or clunky feeling game. We want to again reiterate, that early access is a period of testing and balancing, not finding the fun or discovering our core mechanics. ”

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

“Apart from sales, the price is not going to change between early access and full 1.0 release. The game is already full featured and exciting, not a prototype needing validation, but rather a great game with an interesting mechanic that simply needs player testing and feedback. We want to make clear to players that early access is a balancing period so we set the expectations properly for the pricing now and for release. ”

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

“Community feedback is vitally important for a game of this type. It is our plan to intimately involve our players in the process of developing the right balance between challenge and experimentation. The mechanics are very interesting and we are excited in fact to watch emerging strategies come out of our interactions with our community. To put it simply, community is going to be absolutely essential to the success of the game. ”