Why Early Access?

“I like when small developers release a game as Early Access when enough content is finished to get many hours of enjoyment out of it, and then take player feedback into account when finalizing the game.
It feels like you end up with a better product than if it had just been 1.0ed behind the scenes and released and never updated again.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“The current state of the game is fully playable and lets players defend against 50 nights of manually set enemy waves, and infinite waves once the victory screen is reached.
The game will be out of Early Access approximately Q4 2025, giving me a chance to fix bugs and make balance changes and add new "Minor content" such as a new tier of armor past Iron, additional spells, and additional base defense mechanisms.”

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

“The game's core is mostly in place but there is always room to add more building pieces, decorations, weapons and armor, enemies and bosses, places and chests on the island to discover, and underground caves to delve.

Any features to improve the user experience that players suggest can be implemented as well.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“The game primarily focuses on survival/craft resource harvesting and a base building system with automated arrow towers and traps to defend against nightly enemy waves that get absurdly strong after awhile.
This functionality is pretty solid, and someone who is into the survival + castle building defense mechanic could get many hours of entertainment from the game as it is either alone or with friends.
There are 50 waves of enemies for a minor victory, and an ultimate victory for defeating the waves and all the bosses around the island.
After 50 waves the game enters "Endless waves mode" so a file and castle build remains usable with the defense mechanic indefinitely.

There may be the occasional bug, but I already have done hundreds of hours of bugfixing.

Building System Content -
Structures can currently be made out of either Wood or Stone in either large 4 ft x 4 ft chunks, or 2 ft x 4 ft chunks, with some pieces as small as 2 ft x 2 ft, all the way down to individual wooden beams.
There are palisade walls, pieces for crenelated stone castle walls, large pillars to raise arrow towers up, arrow towers themselves as well as proximity activated spike traps that can be placed on the ground or embedded in walls.
Along with crafting benches like the workbench, furnace, stone cutter, cooking pot, alchemy desk, ogham enchanter and blessing lectern (for gear upgrades) there are all kinds of decorations such as: tables, fireplace, cabinets, a kitchen sink. chairs, carpets, paintings, toilet, bathtub, light sources, a trash can to throw away stuff, a statue to change your character's appearance, a harp to advance time forward, clutter like plates, bowls, wine bottles, baskets, books and more.
There is also a planting hoe to plant trees, bushes, flowers and even mushrooms.
The ability to make a base worthy of being put on a youtube video build showcase is one of the major goals of the game.

Map Exploration Content -
The island is about 75% fleshed out in some capacity, and about 50% fully fleshed out. Fleshing out the island will be an ongoing process, and I'll continue manually painting down additional environment detail and chests to find in nearly every update.

Performance and Optimization -
A significant time has already been spent doing optimization to get the game to run with as many enemies spawned as possible while maintaining the good Unreal Engine 5 graphics.
Enemy waves can get as large as 200 per wave.
The game does not use UE's new Nanite technology.

The settings screen comes loaded with as many graphic options as I could think of to get the game to run on as low of specs as possible, and the system to reassign button mapping is fully implemented.”

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

“The game's price may increase slightly after Early Access, but I will always try to keep it a fairly low price given its an indie game made by a solo developer.”

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

“The game has a Discord server that I plan to use for people to post suggestions, as well as any posted on the community tab of Steam.

Any good ideas that I agree with are likely to be implemented.”