This is timely. I just finished the stable beta last night. I was a bit heartbroken when I realized I was at the end of the line, but there’s still a lot to do and I appreciate that you’re working on it. I’ll look into the Frontline Beta.

Before I got the game I saw a few of the reviews complaining about how it isn’t done already. After playing through it, I want to tell you that there was more inspiration in this game in its current incomplete form than in many final release games I’ve played. I was impressed by all of the thoughtful features and details, clever ideas, and clever writing and world-building.

This is a special game you’ve got here, and I’m looking forward to future developments. I’m going to look at the Frontline Beta and think about participating in that process. Should I start a new character file? Seems like a good excuse to play through again trying a different approach.

@Nathaniel: Thanks a bunch for the encouragement! :)

The regular save file is compatible with the Frontline build, but once you’ve played with a character on Frontline you won’t be able to use it in the Stable version until their version number is the same!

That said, you might want to consider giving the game a short break to allow for the Stable build to arrive, since it shouldn’t be *that* far off now. The Frontline version is quite polished already, but the sounds (which are currently not in) will make a big difference I think.

I love this game and I can’t wait to see it finished. I also love to follow the slow and steady development of it and reinstall it once in a while when I feel there’s enough new stuff to give it a whirl again, but as a hobbyist game developer myself I’m frustrated by the fact that you have so many negative reviews on Steam whose only negative talking point is the slow development of the game. I mean don’t buy early access if you’re impatient. You either buy early access if you want to support the developer or if you feel the game at that point in time is worth your money. It’s frustrating that people don’t get that or that Steam isn’t able to make that clearer to people buying early access. Not to mention this game has been worth the money for a very long time. It’s been perfectly robust and playable for me ever since the first time I played it, even in local/online multiplayer. Most released games don’t even feel this polished. In fact this game could have been tagged as released a long time ago and there would have been more than enough content and polish in it for nobody to have any reason to complain.

I’m curious though. It’s probably nearly 10 years since I first heard about this game and at that time I either read or in some way or other got the feeling that you were making this game alongside normal day jobs or school. Is that still the case? Was that ever the case? Or are you working on this full-time? I’m just wondering if there’s enough money in a project like this to support you for that long, but if it’s just a side project / hobby then money probably isn’t that important.

I’ve just been making games for myself so far as a hobby alongside my web development day job, but my goal is to one day get a game on Steam, most likely a free one, but maybe at some point in time even a monetized one. And if that could turn into my full-time job that would be really neat. :p

Øyvind: Thanks! Well, Early Access is controversial so it is what it is! Also, I’m sure some people kind of skip the game description and go straight from the screenshots to the reviews, so they might be helped by the negative reviews. Hopefully some of the authors of those reviews will like the finished product and change them!

To answer your question, we’ve been working on the game full time since the Steam release in 2015 (man, that’s a long time ago!) We were lucky enough to sell a good enough quantity to get some solid savings going, and we’re used to living cheaply from all those years as students so that pile is lasting a long while – certainly enough to finish the game, though we’ll need some more sales when Grindea is finished to continue on after that (I’m pretty optimistic about that though).

Thanks again for the kind words and good luck with your own games! :)

Teddy: Personally, over all those years I bought this game like 4 times (for my friends) and all dlcs, because that’s how much I like it, and while I enjoy playing game with my friends, buying dlcs was only for you guys, because I felt like the game is more valueable than its pricetag. So if you ever have any problem with selling it normally, just make another “buy developers a coffee” dlc, and I’m sure not only me, but much people would buy it. Your game is so good, that when you’re gonna make a new game, I’m 100% positive I will buy it even still in Early Access. I doesn’t matter what genre of game it will be, you guys build your games with your community and polish it so much, that I will be good, no matter what.