Why Early Access?

“We are releasing Grave Days under Early Access, because we believe that it will help make a better game. We are looking for feedback in terms of balancing and mechanics, so we can be sure we are taking the game in the right direction. We are still in alpha, and a lot can, and will, still change - and we'd like to involve the community in this to make the game as fun as possible!

We believe that Grave Days is an ideal candidate as an Early Access title, as it offers replayability with its procedurally generated world and survival elements.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan for Grave Days to be in Early Access for approximately 1 to 1.5 years. It has been in development for 1.5 years thus far, but was for the most part done part time. It is our goal to work on this full time, which will help speed up the development process. If we can't financially support it however, we will either work on it a bit longer or reduce the scope where it makes sense, to make a more concise, but still engaging game.”

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

“Grave Days has a lot of potential and many directions the game can possibly go in. The final picture has not been painted yet, and will change as we further develop the game, and learn new lessons and get feedback from the community. This means that the final product can differ greatly from the current version, including some mechanics as well as the art style. We will only make such drastic changes where we believe it is in the best interests of making Grave Days as fun as possible.

One thing is certain though, we want to add more life and more chaos to the world. We believe there are some core mechanics missing in order to achieve this, and we intend to explore some or all of these as we move towards our beta release.

• NPC survivors with more objectives & missions
  
• More character classes with artwork for each
  
• Special zombies and perhaps zombie bosses
  
• Traps, explosives, fires
  
• More weapons & craftable items
  
• More varied world generation, such as different themed worlds and more building types.

The Roguelite and Progression elements are also still rather new additions to the game. We really love the impact they have left on the game and thus we'd like to expand on them. We'd like to add more survivor classes on the game, and put in more work to differentiate them from one another to make them feel unique. We'd need more artwork done on this front however, and if we find it feasible, some character customisation options.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Currently, Grave Days is a fun-to-play-around-with Survival Roguelite game. We believe we have correctly captured the core feel of the game - the biggest missing core feature being NPC survivors. The level of polish is not perfect yet, but we feel it is in an acceptable state for people who have an appetite for Early Access games to enjoy. In particular, those who enjoy pixel-art Roguelites and Zombies games.

The current game features are:

• Procedurally generated worlds with randomly composed towns, consisting of buildings, farms and / or parks.
  
• Procedurally generated buildings. Currently there are only 4 main types, but the layouts are procedurally generated to break repetition a little.
  
• 9 melee weapons, 3 ranged weapons
  
• 5 base character classes - all still using the same pixel art for the moment. This is a priority for us to update.
  
• Crafting of weapons & medicine, and cooking of food
  
• Dynamic line of sight and lighting system, weather and day/night cycle
  
• Dynamic music, which reacts to the current situation and intensity.
  
• Expeditions with basic objectives.
  
• XP and leveling system.

Note that during the alpha period of the game, certain features will not yet be fully polished, and it is possible that your save data will be lost between updates. We will however, try to minimise this occurrence from happening and try our best to support older save files where it is feasible to do so.

Also note that we may make some simplifications to the art style going forward, as we investigate different pixel art layering techniques and styles in order to allow us to easily add new character art for different NPCs and classes.”

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

“We plan to raise the price when we leave alpha and start our beta development cycle, and again when we leave Early Access. The final price will likely be approximately 20-30% higher, depending on the final scope of the game.”

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

“We'd like to involve the community during development of Grave Days, by inviting our supporters to give their feedback on features, bugs, levels of polish and overall feel and direction of the game.

We will be closely monitoring the Steam Community Hub and Steam reviews. We'd also like to invite everyone to join our discord server and engage with us on twitter. Furthermore, bugs and feedback can easily be logged in game, allowing us to effectively react to most problems that may arise.”