Why Early Access?

“Systems-driven city-builders are the perfect fit for a participatory style of development in collaboration with the game's community. Being able to get hands-on player feedback about what's working, what's more surprising/interesting than we anticipated (we can go deeper on these features) and what's a source of more friction than we imagined (so we can smooth those things out) is invaluable and will let us create the best game possible, with your help.

Every playtest we've done for Generation Exile has been a genuine delight and we are very much excited to bring the same spirit of feedback and collaboration to the wider audience of Steam.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We are aiming for approximately 9-12 months of Early Access. We have a clear picture of the core game content we will be building for 1.0 but we also want to allow sufficient flexibility for the community to discover what parts of Generation Exile they are ”

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

“The game's core mechanics and interactions are in a near final state (but of course, we'll endeavour to still make them as clear and robust as possible in response to player feedback).

The plan for moving from Early Access to 1.0 will be heavily informed by what aspects of the game the community is connecting with most and seems the ripest for additional content. That might be more narrative events or biomes or buildings or character traits; we'd like to know what players are finding the most engaging and focus on content building efforts in that direction.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Generation Exile's first two biomes are fully playable, with all their core systems, structures and goals in place. Full procedural generation of maps on every new game along with all the characters population the simulation is fully functional. The UI/UX is as polished as we can make it without more hands-on feedback and evaluation (we know there will always be more to do here!). There is a significant number of reactive and procedurally triggered narrative events in place, with high-quality presentation.

In short, the game's core systems are fully in place and what we are intending to do through Early Access is finalize the remaining biomes as well as continuing to layer in more content and options to mix up the experience.”

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

“As the game develops, we may increase the price when the game moves from Early Access to 1.0, depending on the scope of features and content that we add over the course of Early Access development. Should this end up being the case, we'll provide that update to community and anyone interested in the game who might have yet purchased the Early Access version so they can jump in before the 1.0 launch price change.

There might be seasonal discounts during Early Access, in addition to an Early Access launch discount for anyone who gets onboard straight away.”

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

“We'll keep the impending changes in an experimental branch anyone can opt into, we have robust online bug reporting and feedback tools and we'll be engaging the community on our Discord server with periodic surveys (in addition to ongoing ad hoc feedback) about what is working well and what is needing further refinement.”