Why Early Access?

“I consider this game Early Access because I have a vision for what this game should be by the time of release, and the iteration of the game you see today has not met that final vision. The foundation is there, but in order to bring the full vision to life, I need the input of all of you to guide my decisions so that I'm not adding features / mechanics that nobody cares about.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“I have no definitive answer to the time frame of how long Early Access will be. Personally, a full year post Early Access release feels like a reasonable amount of time to bring a smaller project like this to a natural conclusion. It has taken me just over a year from starting out to get this far, so another year or so in the pipeline seems right.”

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

“I do have a list of things planned for what a final version of this game looks like. This includes:

• Additional ghost behavior abilities / additions.

I've narrowed this list down since the initial early access release just over a year ago. Due to the low interest of this game since early access release, I've felt it would be better to not invest time in non-essential additions to the game unless I see significant signs of interest in these types of additions. Here is a list of things I'll consider adding if interest in the game picks up post full launch:

• More fleshed out, playable maps
  
• Character / Ghost customization
  
• More equipment
  
• Difficulty modifiers
  
• Additional side quests to do in mission for more rewards and game play loop engagement.

”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Currently, the game is in a state that I'd consider mostly done, save for a few changes and additions to the ghost behavior I'd like to implement. Once those changes have been made, I'll switch to full release.

Multiplayer is stable and has been improved since initial launch, although I know that there are likely many uncovered issues I don't know about and appreciate anyone with a friend or two who are willing to play the game to let me know their experience! As much as I'd love to perfect multiplayer before full launch, the low interest in the game has made it difficult to get any significant amount of feedback to make improvements, so I've decided that any multiplayer issues will need to be ironed out post full launch on a per issue basis.

Even though I've done a lot from the very beginning to mitigate performance issues, there are still some bugs causing them that I'd like to address sooner rather than later. I'd also like to to do a lot of code refactoring as well over time to help with this. Again, same story with multiplayer. The amount of players is low, and variances between machines of those who have shared feedback with me are few and far between so any new performance issues will need to be addressed post launch on a per issue basis.”

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

“Currently, I plan to set the price for Early Access at roughly half of what I expect the full release value to be, and once full release comes I'll raise accordingly.”

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

“I would love to get as much raw feedback as I can so it'll be easy to see where my development focus needs to be. Ideally it would be great to see people post videos and stream the game for their first play through (and beyond if they so choose) so I can get as many genuine new player experiences on record to study and examine where I need to make things more accessible. Sometimes as a developer it's easy to forget that just because, for instance, the controls are obvious to me, doesn't mean it's obvious to a brand new player. Do I need more input prompts popping up on the screen? More tutorials to explain mechanics? You guys get to tell me!”