Why Early Access?

“We do not have sufficient funding to complete the high-quality development of this game. Although it is currently around 90% complete if we include scrapped drafts, the quality of these drafts is far from satisfactory.
Previously, the development of this project relied on me (Heijiao) spending roughly 80% of my time each month on other outsourcing work, with only the remaining 20% dedicated to developing the project itself. This has resulted in an infinitely prolonged development cycle.
We hope to use the funds raised through Early Access (EA) to further iterate on the quality of the levels and the post-release content of the game.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Depending on funding availability, we will complete this project within a minimum of six months to a maximum of approximately one year.”

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

“The full version will include 17 main story levels and several side levels. The total playtime will be around 20 hours.

Specifically, we have two plans:
Plan A: If funding is sufficient, every main story level will feature its own unique mechanics, such as the ice-slipping and mushroom-eating mechanics we have already implemented.
Plan B: If funding is insufficient, players will still be able to play through all 17 levels and experience the complete story. The level experience will not be subpar — at minimum, it will meet the average quality of similar turn-based strategy games.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“We have currently completed 70% of the game content, including all systems, 49 playable characters, approximately 30 skills, and the full content of the first 4 main story levels. We have also added several side challenges, featuring 1–2 challenge variants per level and two completely distinct maps. The total playtime is around 2–3 hours.

In addition, we have created roughly 7 scrapped levels. Under smooth development progress, these levels will either be repurposed as side content or discarded entirely. If funding is insufficient, they may be directly integrated as main story levels.
All completed content that is not yet unlocked in the main story can be accessed via GM commands or similar methods.”

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

“Depending on the game’s completion status, we may keep the price unchanged or raise it to a maximum of $19.9 .

I understand some players may have concerns about the pricing. However, the turn‑based strategy game market is relatively niche, with a small base of paying players. Lowering the price will not necessarily encourage more purchases. On the contrary, under current market conditions, selling at too low a price could lead to significant losses, leaving us unable to continue developing future content or sequels.”

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

“Players may leave feedback through various channels (including but not limited to positive/negative reviews, QQ groups, etc.), including bugs, desired gameplay features, etc. All feedback will be taken into consideration or directly implemented in upcoming updates.

Under normal sales performance (more than 5,000 copies at launch), we will maintain an update frequency of at least once every two weeks. If sales fall below expectations, we will update at least once a month, as we will need to take on additional outsourcing work to fund the project.

Each update will mainly fall into one of two categories:
1.Main story level updates. Typically, one level can be completed every two weeks.
2.If there is no main story update, a comprehensive update will be released instead, including multiple side levels, new mechanics, bug fixes, and other improvements.

You don’t have to worry about the project being unfinished. The existing scrapped content alone is already sufficient to support the full game experience. However, we feel it is not good enough to match the effort we have already invested in this project, so we are determined to make it even better.”