Why Early Access?

“I want to develop a Survival Crafting Game in a different perspective. There are many interesting systems and still need the opinion of the general players. I see that EA is in the best position to do something like this. We can test the game system and ask for feedback from the players.

For example, making the npc survivor control system more complex. It is still in the test phase.

The Early Access version is for those who are interested in supporting the project and are ready to accept the change of the balance within the game.

I know a lot of people just get a game barely off the ground and then abandon it once it becomes clear how much work needs to be put into making a good game.

I've been in tech for 20+ years now and have owned a business in tech for 5+ years and I know that these sorts of things can entail and I'm ready to make this a major portion of my day to day life regardless of support. I've just gotten to the point where I enjoy making games and learning code more than I like playing them so this is what I do with my gaming time. If it blows up in sales and starts demanding a full time amount of attention, well I can do that too.

I've been pushing for almost daily updates as it is and will continue to push for that level dedication and transparency.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“When I launched in 2021, I estimated about 5 years. That was speculative, and it turned out to be optimistic. Five years later the game is still pre-alpha, and I'd rather be straight about that than pretend otherwise. This has been largely due to my not knowing proper coding and now I'm in my senior years of my bachelor's in Computer Science, so that hurdle is dissolving as I write.

What those years went into is the foundation everything else stands on. The world is procedurally generated and fully diggable, with coastlines, mountain ranges, lakes, caves and about a dozen biomes. The survival side has a real body and medical simulation instead of a health bar, timed gathering, crafting and building, and co-op through Steam is working. Recruiting survivors and handing them jobs is in, in an early form.

What's left is mostly functionality and depth: a crafting tree that carries you from the stone age through woodworking, pottery, leather and metal; the per-character AI that lets your survivors take over the grind; settlements; and a lot of content and art. The per-character AI is still the biggest and slowest piece, the same as I expected in 2021.

My current estimate is about two more years to reach the version I have in mind, assuming it's still just me. As before, that's a guess. The scope may keep growing, and this could turn into a lifelong project. If I get help, it could go a lot faster, but who knows.”

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

“For the full version (as it is currently envisioned) will plan to have full multiplayer, controllable AI characters, and a deep crafting system from rocks to castles. We hope to keep building functionality to the point where we have a robust platform that can be modded and have entire worlds created on public and private servers. Think Minecraft, but in a much more realistic setting and much more realistic set of mechanics.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game is still pre-alpha, but there's a lot more to do than in the 2021 version, where you could mostly just run around and look at the world.

The world. Every world is generated from a seed: a very large voxel landscape with coastlines, mountain ranges, upland lakes, caves, forests and about a dozen biomes, from temperate forest and locust woodland to rainforest and alpine heath. All of the terrain can be dug and reshaped. There's a day-night cycle and weather, and you can swim (and drown).

Starting out. You start a new game by naming your survivor and choosing their skin tone, hair and eye colour while the world loads around you. A short tutorial walks you through your first steps.

Surviving. Hunger, thirst and fatigue build up over time, and your survivor has a simulated body instead of a health bar: wounds bleed and heal over time, and cold, wet, exhaustion and blood loss all affect you. The world doesn't pause, even in menus.

Gathering and crafting. Everything takes time and nothing is instant. You can pick up stones, flint and branches, strip bark, gather berries and hazelnuts, forage, knap flint into flakes, knives and hand axes, twist fibre into cordage, burn charcoal and cook. You can build a campfire, a lean-to and simple stick structures by bringing materials to the site.

Survivors and co-op. You can recruit survivors you find, switch control between them, and give them early jobs like gathering wood or hauling earth. You can host or join friends through Steam, each playing your own survivor in the same world.

What's missing. A lot. The crafting tree currently stops around the stone age: woodworking, pottery, leather and metal aren't reachable in play yet. Drinking from lakes is next. Many items still have placeholder art, and the survivor AI is early. Expect bugs and frequent changes. There's an in-game bug report button that sends reports straight to me, so please use it.”

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

“We plan to gradually raise the price to support multiple developers as the game gets more fleshed out. There will likely be DLCs for different add on genre specific packs like RPG Fantasy or Crashed Spacecraft tech but the core game will be very vanilla realistic. As we continue to build out online functions we will also offer servers that are native to the game instead of forcing players to go out to other markets and manually configure servers themselves and these will also change the overall price.”

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

“Community feedback will be paramount in making this sort of project work and we look forward to trying to balance the vision of the game with the desired play of the community. We are already taking suggestions and putting out regular development updates on Facebook and Twitter and we're getting feedback from YouTube as well. I'm very committed to the communities that games can create. Once we're all setup here on Steam we hope to get all sorts of feedback.

Here's a few links to keep up to date on the project as well as provide feedback even if you're not able to purchase and play. The Facebook page is solely dedicated to the game. The Twitter and YouTube you may be subjected to the rest of my goings on.

Facebook
YouTube
Twitter ”