Why Early Access?

“Ship Busters is a game about taking a ship apart piece by piece, and that only works if the pieces come apart in ways that feel fair. Every hull section, every kind of round, and every gear set interacts with all the others, and the number of combinations is far beyond what a small team can meaningfully test on its own. We want that balancing to happen in the open, with players who will find the exploits and the dead-end builds faster than we ever could.

Early Access also lets us build the parts of the game that only make sense with an audience already playing, daily challenges people are competing on, and the online duels we're working toward. We'd rather ship those into a community that has told us what it wants from them than guess in private and hope.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We're planning on roughly nine to twelve months in Early Access. That estimate assumes the roadmap we have today survives contact with players, and it probably won't survive all of it, if what we learn means the game needs longer, we'd rather take the time than leave in a hurry. We'll keep the current state and near-term plans posted so nobody has to guess where things stand.”

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

“We plan to expand Ship Busters in four directions.

The campaign. We plan to finish out the seven-seas map, adding the remaining stages, enemy ship classes and encounter types beyond those in the Early Access build.

The collection. We plan to complete the full run of 12 gear sets, six pieces each, cannon through keel, along with the set bonuses that make chasing a full set worthwhile.

Online play. We plan to add an online Arena where players duel each other directly. This is in active development, and we'd rather bring it in when it's solid than early and broken.

Everything around the edges. We plan to widen the ordnance table, expand the daily and endless modes, deepen the accessibility options, and add more languages.

We'd also expect a fair amount of the full version to come from things players ask for that aren't on this list yet.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The Early Access build is a complete, playable game rather than a demo:

Campaign: 7 stages across the seven seas, 7 battles in each, 49 in total.
Dungeons: a separate run-based mode with its own encounters and rewards.
Live multiplayer: duel other players directly. This is the newest part of the game and the part most likely to change; expect rough edges and tell us about them.
The Broadside: the game's signature mechanic. Charge your ready guns and fire them as one synchronised volley.
The full ordnance table: round shot, grape, chain, hotshot, mortar, piercing shot, harpoons and stuck bombs, each with its own way of ruining a ship.
Fully destructible hulls: sections collapse, sails tear, fires spread, and a magazine hit will chain through a ship and sink it.
Gear sets with bonuses across speed, hull, damage, dodge and ambush damage.
Gauntlet, an endless wave mode, and a Daily Challenge on a shared seed.
A guided tutorial and a set of accessibility options.

Expect balance to move, that's much of what Early Access is for, and expect bugs, which we'd genuinely like reported.”

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

“Ship Busters is free to play, in Early Access and after it. There's no purchase to make and no price to change. In-game items are optional and always will be nothing sold in the game is required to finish the campaign, clear a dungeon or win a duel.

We'd rather people played the game and decided for themselves whether it's worth supporting than paid up front for something unfinished.”

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

“Balance is what we most need help with, so that's where we're pointing the loudest channels. We plan to run the Steam discussion boards and a community Discord as the main places for feedback, bug reports and arguments about whether harpoons are overtuned.

Concretely, we plan to:

Publish patch notes that say what changed and why, including the numbers, so balance discussion can be about the actual values rather than guesswork.
Put balance questions to players before we act on them, especially where a change affects builds people have already invested in.
Use the Daily Challenge as a running conversation, it's the same fight for everyone that day, and how people solve it tells us a great deal about what's actually working.
Test multiplayer changes publicly rather than shipping them finished and finding out afterwards.

We read the boards. If a build is bad, saying so plainly is more useful to us than being polite about it.”