Why Early Access?

“Fluxgates is a systems game built by one person, and systems games are only finished once players have tried to break them. The content is here - eight packs, 71 nodes, three acts, five bosses. What isn't here yet is the thousands of runs it takes to know which combos are broken, which packs feel dead, and where the difficulty curve quietly lies to you. I'd rather tune that with players than guess at it alone for another year and end up with a game balanced for an audience of one.

The second reason is that a game like this should keep growing. Every pack changes what a run is, and the ones I haven't built yet are the ones players will argue me into. Early Access is where that argument happens while it can still change the game - starting with the biggest addition I have planned, the Foundry: every run you play will feed a persistent meta factory, so no run, won or lost, leaves nothing behind.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“I'm planning for around a year, and I'd rather give an order of magnitude than a date. The plan is regular updates instead of one big drop: balance passes as soon as there's enough play to justify them, then the Foundry and new packs and relics on top. My intention is to leave Early Access once the balance has stopped moving and the roadmap has run out - and if that takes longer, I'd rather say so than call it finished early.
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How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The plan is more of what's already there, plus the things that aren't in yet:

- The Foundry: every run you play will feed a persistent meta factory - the last room of each run becomes a machine there, and the Foundry's output powers your research tree. It's a plan, not a date
- New packs, nodes and relics, added over time rather than all at once
- A balance pass driven by how people actually play, not by how I play
- Steam Cloud saves, then Steam Achievements
- More rooms, more bosses, and more research to spend Flux on
- Challenge modes for people who have finished the Heat ladder
- More languages beyond English and French
- I'd also like to get macOS builds out, though I can't say yet whether that will happen since there already is Windows + Linux/SteamOs

The core loop - draft, wire, run, push your luck - is what it's going to be, and I have no plans to change it. Early Access is about what fills it, and about a thousand small edges getting sanded down along the way. Anything that turns out to make the game worse, I'd rather cut than keep for the sake of a longer changelog.
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What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Playable start to finish, in English and French. A run is three acts, each a branching map of rooms, elites, rests and events that ends in a boss - beat the third and the run is won. You draft nodes and relics as you go, spend Flux in a research tree between runs, and climb the Heat ladder if you want the run to fight back. Eight packs, 71 nodes, 23 relics, 42 rooms and 5 bosses are in and working, and a guided tutorial on the main menu teaches the loop.

What that means in practice: the systems are complete and the balance is not. Expect combos that are stronger than they should be, packs that need work, and difficulty that jumps where it should climb. That's the part Early Access is for.

What isn't in yet, so nobody has to find out after buying:

- The Foundry - planned, not in the game yet
- No Steam Achievements and no Steam Cloud saves - saves are local
- Keyboard and mouse only - no controller support (although steam deck input config is included)
- Windows + SteamOs only
- English and French only

It is not a content-locked trial. What you buy is the whole game as it stands today.
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Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“I plan to raise the price when the game leaves Early Access, to match the content added along the way - so the Early Access price is meant to be the lowest Fluxgates is sold at. Whenever you buy it, you get every later update, including the 1.0 release, at no extra cost.
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How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“The Steam community hub is the main channel - discussions and bug reports, read by me, because there is no one else. There's a Discord too (discord.gg/WaM3BhhVJR), for people who'd rather talk about a build than post about it - the game's main menu links straight to it, next to the bug-report button.

The first time you launch the game, it asks - once, in plain language - whether you want to share anonymous statistics about your runs: which rooms stopped you, what you picked, where the run ended, and a report if the game crashes. It's off unless you say yes, and you can change your mind any time in Settings → Data. No account, no personal data, nothing that identifies you, and the game works exactly the same if you leave it off. Everyone who turns it on is directly feeding the balance passes - it's the difference between tuning this game on data and tuning it on my own opinion.

Neither replaces telling me things in words. Say what stalled, what felt broken, what you stopped using. I plan to post what changed and why alongside each update, and when a request doesn't make the cut, I'd rather explain that than leave it unanswered.
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