Why Early Access?

“PULLFINITY needs players to help decide what it grows into, and the two biggest pieces of that are open right now.

The first is a sixth set. Five sets and 300 cards are in the game today, and the intention for Early Access is a sixth one with its own pack, its own sixty cards and its own variant. What it is about is not decided. Wildreach, Rustwake, Lumenhollow, Skybound Concord and Astral Verge each have a world of their own, and I would like the next world to be one that players asked for rather than the one I would have picked alone.

The second is the build. A run today is shaped by the Workshop, with three branches of four nodes, and by the three Showcase frames, where each Epic, Legendary and Mythic card has an effect. All twelve nodes and all ten card effects change a number: faster, luckier, cheaper. That was a deliberate first step, and it is also the limit of it. What a node or a showcased card should be allowed to do beyond that is the largest open design question in the game. I have more ideas than certainty about which of them make a run play differently rather than just go faster, and players who have done ten runs will know that better than I do.

Underneath both, the numbers. Every price, rate and chance lives in one data file, and a simulation plays thousands of runs with seven different player profiles every time something changes. It can tell me whether a run is possible and how long it takes. It cannot tell me where a real person gets bored, and that is what I want to learn from the people playing.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Around six months.

That is what I expect the planned work to take: the sixth set, a wider Workshop and Showcase, and whatever else turns out to matter once people are playing. The set and the new build options are designed together with players, so the time depends on how long the deciding takes. If what comes back is worth more rounds than planned, I would rather update this estimate here, in public, than let a date pass quietly.”

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

“The aim is a sixth set, more ways to build a run, and a late game that holds up after the Collector Shop is full.

Content. The intention is a sixth set with its own pack, sixty new cards and its own variant by 1.0. Its theme is deliberately open. Naming one here would only fix the answer I would have given on my own.

Builds. The Workshop and the Showcase are expected to grow, in size and in kind: nodes and card effects that change how a run plays, alongside the ones that change its speed. Which ones get built depends on what players try and ask for, so I would rather not print a list written before anyone has played.

Late game. The Collector Shop is full at around Rank 10, roughly six hours in. What keeps prestige worth doing after that is an open question, and one I want to answer with the players who get there first.

Balance. Prices, rates and card values are set today against measurements from simulated players and my own runs. The aim is to set them against how people actually play, and to keep the Workshop branches and Showcase cards even enough that no single build is the obvious answer.

I expect the full version to contain things that are not in this answer. That is the reason for building it this way.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“A full run is playable from the first pack to the PULLFINITY EVENT, and prestige works from there to Rank 10 and beyond. The game around that run is young.

What is in: five sets with 60 cards each, 300 in all, with animated art from Rare upwards. Six rarities, five variants per card including numbered Serialized cards, and Mastery from 1 to 5. Five pack types. A machine that grows from single packs to batches of 500, with Auto-Open, Auto-Sell and a Rare Scanner. Distributor requests, offline deliveries, the Workshop, the Showcase, the finale and the Collector Shop. Steam achievements and Steam Cloud. Fifteen languages, free key rebinding, separate volume controls and Reduced Motion. A first run takes about 70 minutes.

What is open on purpose: the build. Every Workshop node and every Showcase effect today changes a number. There is nothing yet that changes what a run is, and that is the largest open design question in the game.

What is not built yet: the sixth set. Its theme, its cards and its pack get decided in Early Access.

The numbers are measured rather than guessed, by thousands of simulated runs, but no simulation plays like a person. So expect the Workshop and the Showcase to look different in a few months, expect balance to shift when they do, and expect the kind of bug that one developer does not find alone.”

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

“The price is likely to go up a little when the game leaves Early Access.

Everyone who buys during Early Access gets everything that comes later, including the sixth set, at no extra cost. That seems the right way round: the people who help decide what goes into the game should not pay more than the people who arrive afterwards.”

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

“Mainly through Discord and the Steam forums.

The Discord link sits in the game's Escape menu, one click away from wherever you are. A bug report that has to wait until you look for a website usually never gets written.

The decisions I do not want to make alone get made there. The sixth set starts with a thread for its theme, and the candidates get discussed before anything is drawn. Every idea for a new Workshop node or Showcase effect gets its own thread as well, and the ones under consideration get picked apart before they are built. None of that is a vote, and none of it is my taste alone either. When an idea keeps coming back, it gets built and tried, and the change notes say whose idea it was.

One more thing I would like help with: the game ships in fifteen languages, and I grew up speaking one of them. If something reads oddly in yours, tell me. It is the kind of fix that takes a minute and would otherwise never be found.

I cannot promise that every suggestion ends up in the game. I can promise that it gets read, and that when something changes because someone asked, the change notes say so.”