Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access? “We are pretty confident about the current state of development. To increase content and polish to the next level, we would like to have the game fully realized within 6 to 8 months .” ...

Seems like it.

As it currently exists, if it fun for a few hours?

last update september 30. and overall there hasn't changed much since ea release and the roadmap is still long. i guess they are active on discord or twitter (as usual nowadays for whatever weird reason), but since the game is on steam - talk to us on steam....

"It's a barebones functional foundation that's basically a working proof of concept" - yes, the game is still in development. That's what early access means. Haven't dived in yet myself precisely because I want to see how it pans out but I'm not holding "unfinished game is unfinished" against it!...