Why Early Access?

“Fangrush is already fully playable: the core rules, the 24-hunt seasonal campaign, extra hunts, fantasy hunts and the puzzle challenges are all in the game. What still needs real-world validation are two things we cannot settle on our own: whether the sheep AI stays trustworthy at the highest difficulty without making obviously bad moves, and whether the difficulty curve across the maps is fair for new players.

Our own testing only covers a limited set of positions. We plan to use an Early Access period to collect real matches and feedback, use them to tune AI judgement and map balance, and then move to the full release. We want the finished game to be one where the AI earns respect and a loss clearly feels like your own misjudgement.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan on roughly one to two months. If feedback on the AI and map balance converges sooner, we plan to leave Early Access earlier. If the feedback points at problems that need more work, we plan to extend it rather than rush the full release to hit a date.”

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

“The content will not be cut back: Early Access already includes the 24-hunt seasonal campaign, extra hunts, fantasy hunts, puzzle challenges, playing as either wolves or sheep, and multiple AI strengths.

For the full release we plan to:
improve the sheep AI's judgement so it makes fewer clearly bad moves at high difficulty;
retune the difficulty curve of individual maps against real win rates;
expand the puzzle set so every puzzle has a clear goal and a real key move;
improve the tutorial and input feedback so the rules land faster;
keep polishing audio, animation and overall presentation based on feedback.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“It is fully playable, not a slice. The current build includes the complete rule set for three wolves against the flock (stepping, leap-capture, chaining up to five captures in one turn), the 24-hunt seasonal campaign, extra hunts with larger flocks and higher targets, fantasy hunts with mire zones, safe zones and board shapes beyond the square grid, puzzle challenges with fixed positions, free play, playing as either side, multiple AI strengths, and offline single-player with local saves.

Known gaps: at the highest difficulty the sheep AI still makes an obviously questionable move now and then, and a few maps do not sit exactly where their chapter's difficulty suggests. Those two points are what this Early Access period is for.”

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

“Yes. We plan to raise the price when the game leaves Early Access and becomes the full release, because it will be a more polished and more complete game by then. Anyone who buys during Early Access gets all later updates and the full version at no extra cost. We plan to announce the change in advance so players who are still deciding have time to do so.”

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

“We plan to use the Steam discussion boards as the main feedback channel, and to be explicit about the two kinds of reports we need most:

first, "the AI made an obviously bad move" - tell us the map, the difficulty and roughly what the position looked like, which lets us pin down the specific flaw in its judgement;
second, "this hunt is too hard or too easy" - tell us which hunt and where you got stuck, which is what we use to calibrate the difficulty curve.

We plan to go through this feedback regularly and to say in each update post what changed and which reports drove it, so players can see what their input actually produced.”