Why Early Access?

“Doing the MatchyGotchy Beta last year was an amazing experience. We hope to do a larger scale of that development experience by opening Early Access to the public. We want causal gamers, cuteness connoisseurs, and digital pet aficionados to join in the development process.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We have months of new stuff planned that needs polish before we add it. We are also hoping to include work based on community feedback and requests. Depending on how this goes, we are hoping for a late 2019 release, or early 2020 release.”

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

“The full version should have eight laboratory wings to work in, including about 10 mini-games designed so far - and new actions besides the current ones. MatchyMart should be fully stocked with a variety of food, items, and clothing to buy. Zootlandia is designed to have selling and saving transactions. We want to make Xanadu available providing for a new mini game and a new pet. And finally, MatchyDex should have an inventory system that will allow you to keep track of all items along with its background information.

The current build starts with most of the pets, a third of the lab areas, Matchymart and Zootlandia access. Areas like Xanadu and MatchyDex will not available right now as they are still under development. We have plans to continue to include items and food to MatchyMart, the monster store, where you buy all customizations, and to include more transactions alternatives to Zootlandia, the curency market.

Finally, the current build has AI trainable personalities: a fully integrated game design option we look forward to explore and optimize based on community feedback.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“It is a stable build that we are constantly updating, sometimes even more than once a day. The game is currently completely playable as it is.

There are already 7 different trainable pets with multiple personalities to explore and different work efficiencies. Currently there is one laboratory wing that offers 3 mini-games you can play with your pets, including customizations for these via MatchyMart. Zootlandia only allows you to sell ships for Zoot right now. Stardust is also available, which should guide you through how to level the Stars and how to get around the new content in place.

Not all areas are open to the public yet. We are still working on Xanadu and MatchyDex. We want to include them in the later Early Access updates.”

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

“Most likely, yes. We will revisit this after everything is included, considering the amount of work and time invested.”

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

“We opened a discord with the sole purpose of getting players involved in the process. Even though we are still open to Steam forums and social media, we wanted to be able to communicate better with the community in real time.

We have plans to share game development updates regularly. We are even planning time just to take in requests, with open surveys and specific targeted requests. Each time we upload the build we often consult with the community on everything from visuals to text info, and even afterwards we stop by to ask player first mpressions on the recent updates.

We love feedback, and we hope the community will help us shape the direction of the game into the best we can make of it!”