Pourquoi choisir l'accès anticipé ?

« I'm one person making this, and I know what I want it to be. The roadmap's set, and there's a lot of content still to come: more spells, more bosses, more of the bestiary. What I can't do on my own is tell whether it all feels right to play. I've been staring at it too long to know if the difficulty is fair, if a class still feels good ten floors in, or whether you can see a boss's attack coming the first time you fight it instead of the third.

That's what Early Access is for. I'm not short of ideas. What I need is the stuff that only turns up when someone who isn't me plays it. »

Pendant combien de temps environ ce jeu sera-t-il en accès anticipé ?

« Somewhere around 6 to 12 months is what I'm aiming for. That depends a lot on how much the roadmap shifts once people are actually playing it, so I'd rather give a range than pretend I know the date. »

En quoi la version finale sera-t-elle différente de la version en accès anticipé ?

« Mostly more content. The systems are built, so most of what's left is filling them out.

What I plan to add:
- More spells and abilities for every class. All 8 classes are in, each with its own kit and way of playing, and one of them has to be earned.
- More items.
- More monsters.
- More bosses. There are 7 in at the moment, each with its own abilities rather than the same fight with bigger numbers.
- More hand-crafted rooms and floors mixed in among the procedurally generated ones.
- Codex lore entries.
- Ongoing art, animation, and audio passes, plus Steam achievements.
- More gameplay, UI, and accessibility options.

On accessibility specifically: the game is turn-based, so nothing ever needs a quick reaction, and no gameplay information is audio-only. It all shows up in the log or on screen. Every key and controller button can be rebound, you can play with just the mouse, and there are colour palettes and scaling options if the defaults are hard to read. If something is stopping you from playing, post about it. I'll prioritize accessibility requests ahead of most other things on the list. »

Quel est l'état actuel de la version en accès anticipé ?

« Stable and playable, with a lot of systems and a decent chunk of content.

It's got procedurally generated and hand-crafted floors, full inventory and equipment with rarity, weight, and enchantments, XP and levelling, and eight classes that each play differently, several with a resource all their own. There's also a skills and spells book with ranks and passives, a Prayer system, status effects, monster affixes, ranged and spellcasting enemies, a bestiary that changes as you go deeper, a Codex that fills in as you find things, auto-explore and auto-travel, and multi-tile bosses.

Keyboard, mouse, and controller all work, including Steam Deck. Everything's rebindable, saves are backed up automatically and sync through Steam Cloud, and there are accessibility toggles, swappable colour palettes, and optional retro screen filters. You can also switch between classic ASCII and hand-drawn tiles whenever you like.

There's a real ending to reach, and I think it lands better if you don't know what's coming. Reaching it locks your score in, and if you'd rather not stop there, you can take the same character on into endless mode, which has its own high score board. »

Le prix du jeu sera-t-il différent pendant et après l'accès anticipé ?

« I plan to put the price up as it leaves Early Access and the content fills in. Buying during Early Access will be the cheapest it gets, and you won't pay again for the full version. »

Comment comptez-vous impliquer la communauté dans le processus de développement ?

« The Steam forums are the main place. I'm one person, so I can read basically everything that gets posted, and I'd much rather hear that a boss is unfair or a class is boring than not hear it.

I plan to make the roadmap public as Early Access approaches. It lists every feature as either done or planned, so you'll be able to see where things stand and what's coming next.

Worth being straight about it though: feedback mostly shapes the order things get built in and how they're tuned, not what the game is. I know what I'm making. But difficulty, balance, and how things actually feel to play are the parts I can't get right on my own, so that's the feedback I need most. »