Why Early Access?

“With the assistance of an early access community the project can be built organically and provide invaluable feed back and creative insight. Much of the development process was originally done in an echo chamber, without directly involving too many people.

Opening the design and development process up to a wider audience allows for a strong foundation to be built upon and added to with fresh and new ideas.

The intention is for this to be a positive experience between people who want to see how games are made from the ground up, but also to participate. This is a strong driving force for making a better game, and to learn through experience for all involved.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“6 months is the projected goal”

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

“A fully fleshed out single-player campaign that can be played (and mastered) by 3 different characters that offer completely different strategies to achieve with forking character paths.

An "over world" in which you can choose your next mission locations, which range from abandoned cities, fortified Raider camps, fledgling settlements to trade wares and accomplish objectives, otherworldly anomalies, and procedurally generated encounters both in the form of combat and story progression.

A suite of trial challenges and unlocks based on difficulty levels ranging from standard difficulties to extreme modifiers for only the most hardened survivors.

The game is built from the ground up to be played in 30-45 minute bite sized "missions" and each of these offer unique game rules and features that allow for unlocking other features depending how well the player performs in each challenge.

Support to continually add on new content (missions, features, characters) and more interesting and involved challenges is the plan for the fully fleshed out version.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“

Existing Features

• 1 (The Recruit) character. 2 Unlockable characters
  
• A Stab In The Dark solo campaign
  
• Time Trials
  
• 30+ weapons
  
• 5+ enemies and many more to come
  
• Hand crafted maps, ambushes, and interactive environments
  
• Stealth Action, as well as tactical decision making with the ability to pause time to queue decisions, as well as choosing stance to maximize combat efficiency
  
• Survival Horror-esque resource management and design to keep players on their toes
  
• Environmental hazards, explosives, radiation, firey oil spills, poisonous water supplies,
  
• Stamina dodge, roll, kick, and move with sound in mind from how loud your weapon is, to your foot steps and what you're stepping on for both tactical but fast paced gameplay
  
• Heavily rewarded for exploration, secrets, both in finding things hidden in the world to select and more advanced ones that unlock entirely new challenges and gear.
  
• Ranking system (S, A,B,C,D,F tiers) based on performance
  
• Kick zombie heads off when they fall so they don't get back up, better safe than sorry!

”

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

“After Early Access the price may increase depending on the content that has been added to the final version.”

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

“This project is being worked on full time by (1) developer and assisted through contractors so having a community to play test, suggest ideas, and get involved is an integral part of this project which Early Access as a service provides.

The intention is to release many small updates over time and grow the feature set of Downward Spear organically with the help of the community through our Discord (https://discord.gg/EGxJV79W5u) and Steam community forums.

Users can make suggestions and be directly involved in the continued development and success of Downward Spear”