Miksi Early Access?

We need to figure out what direction to take the game, and which mechanics to implement.

Do people like running the shop itself, or is it too slow-paced? Do they prefer running dungeons, or are they too hard / not rewarding enough? Does everyone ignore the crafting system, because the profit margins are too low? Which parts of the game are resonating with people, so we can spend more of our energy on that?

There are plenty of unfinished or underbaked features. We plan to incorporate player feedback and ask the community for direction.

Things like the user interface, combat balance, and enemy behaviour are rough around the edges. It's the kind of thing we need to put in front of people and hear what's wrong specifically before we can improve it.

Miten kauan peli tulee arviolta olemaan Early Access -vaiheessa?

We anticipate taking 6 to 18 months for a fully polished 1.0 release. We want to focus on the missing mechanics first, then flesh out more cosmetic stuff like monster visual variety.

Millä tavoin lopullinen versio tulee eroamaan Early Access -versiosta?

Compared to our ideal 1.0 release:

=Missing Mechanics=
- NPC Employees
- Farming
- Fishing
- Pet training (you can tame them now to simply follow you around; eventually we would like to allow you to give them commands and use them in combat)
- Ideas to be suggested by the early access playerbase!

=Missing Content=

The dungeons are missing a lot of content, as we were focused on getting the game mechanics in place for the alpha.

- Each of the 15 dungeons has at least one unique monster; most of them have a unique boss, a couple use a placeholder goblin boss.

- Each dungeon currently has a unique environment -- e.g. the Vampire Lair has spooky a red skyline and wooden walls, while the Goblin Cave has damp rock walls and floors. All the dungeons have unique loot lists: you find blood in the Vampire Lair, potions in the witch hut, etc.

- We have 5 of a planned 12 non-monster animals implemented.

- Various items. There are over 150 items, most of them having some kind of function to you, the player.

=Needs Balancing=

- The base prices of items. We need to hear testers' input about this. What feels fun? What feels like a slog? What's so good you can't avoid it, and so bad you never use it?

- Progression in general is kind of all over the place. We need to figure out how long players stay in the "every copper coin matters" stage, when they should feel like "I want an npc employee RIGHT NOW and I should be able to afford it", and so on. This is not something we can figure out on our own - every person is different, we can't balance it based on our own opinions.

- Combat. This is the roughest part of the game right now, for sure. Personally, I find it fun, but I need to know if other people do, and what needs changing.

- UI/UX/Control scheme - Some inputs feel very awkward, and we'd like feedback.

- Balanced things like enemy health, weapon damage, item base pricing, etc. based on player feedback.

- Attempt to make better visuals - particles, shaders, meshes, textures, lighting.

- Attempt to improve multiplayer netcode. It works great with low latency, but there's currently no rollback or clientside prediction, so high-latency games are untenable.

=Other=
- More clarity and insight into how NPCs work. There's actually a very cool, simulated mini-economy powering the game, but I've left that information too obfuscated to be useful or interesting to the player right now.

Mikä on Early Access -version tila tällä hetkellä?

Playtesters say the fun is there! The core game loop works, but not every game mechanic is implemented. What's mostly missing is content and balancing. Currently the 2d sprites for item icons and the user interface are quick programmer-made sketches or outright placeholders.

Currently implemented:
- Stacking shelves, setting prices, selling items.
- Over 150 items to craft, gather, buy and sell.
- A tutorial for the basic controls and concepts.
- Buying wholesale from NPC vendors.
- Tracking shop statistics, customer desires, etc.
- Customers who intelligently buy items based on their job needs.
- 15 Dungeons (2 secret, 1 endgame). We plan to have at least a few unique enemies and a boss per dungeon; currently there is only 1 per dungeon, and most dungeons have a unique boss.
- Creatures. We have 5 (emu, camel, dingo, pig, cassowary), but would like to add more.
- Basic combat and simple monster AI (both need improvement)
- Basic crafting - a cooking table and an alchemy table.

Muuttuuko pelin hinta Early Access -vaiheen jälkeen?

We plan to raise the price after the end of early access, with the release of 1.0.

Miten yhteisö otetaan mukaan kehitysprosessiin?

- Ingame bug reporting / feedback sending to open bug tracker issues directly
- Opt-in analytics so we can see what people like and dislike
- Community polls to vote on development priorities. "For the next patch, should we focus on A. More monsters, B. Bugfixes, C. Multiplayer netcode improvements?", stuff like that.
- Join us on the Steam community forums or our discord to be a part of the development process
- Upon 1.0 release, all EA players will be credited in-game as "Beta Testers"