Early Access Release Summary
Hey Inkborns!
First off, a huge thank you for your trust in us and for being so active across all our channels. We’ve been reading everything you’ve shared, from kind words to spot-on feedback and we really appreciate it. 🙏 Your involvement means a lot, and it’s already helped us spot things we can improve.
Now that we’re a few days into Early Access, we want to take a moment to sum things up. In this post, we’ll talk about:
[h2]1. What’s been working well.[/h2]
First of all, we’re just really happy to have reached this point. Launching into Early Access is a huge milestone for us and an important step on the road to version 1.0.
We’re glad to see that the paper-crafted world struck a chord with many of you. Ink is flowing, paper is flying, we’ve already put in an order for more supplies to keep things going. 😉
When it comes to stability, we’re actually feeling pretty good about where things stand. The game isn’t bug-free (yet!), but thanks to your reports, we’ve been able to track down and patch some of the nastier ones pretty fast. First hotfixes are already live, and we’re keeping an eye out for anything else that needs squashing.
We’ve seen a lot of you put in a good number of hours already. 💪 That’s been amazing to watch. Keep hunting down those combos, quoting the literary greats, and slicing through the layers of enemies on your path to victory!
[h2]2. What didn’t go quite as planned (and what we’re doing about it).[/h2]
Not everything went the way we hoped. Some of you mentioned that the game doesn’t offer enough hours of gameplay yet, and yeah, we hear you. We're already working on ways to change that (more on this in a moment).
We also messed up with regional pricing. In the rush of release, we didn’t catch the issue early enough, and some of you ended up paying more than you should have. What made it worse is that after playing for over 2 hours, Steam wouldn’t let you refund and re-buy the game at the new, lower price. That’s on us, and we want to make it right. If this happened to you, head over to this thread, we’ll walk you through the steps to get it sorted.
[h2]3. What you can expect from us soon (and a bit later down the line).[/h2]
Right now, we’re doing our best to answer your questions and go through all the feedback you’re sending our way. And we’ve got to say, your posts and discussions are incredibly constructive and full of sharp observations. 💪 Please keep them coming!
We owe you a proper roadmap, and yes, it’s on the way! We’ll share it as soon as we can. But we also don’t want to leave you hanging with just a “coming soon” message. Based on what we’re seeing, two things are absolutely key for making your experience more complete:
As for replayability and tougher challenges, we’ve decided to speed things up. Originally, difficulty levels were meant to arrive together with Act 3. But since it’s clear how important they are to you, we’re moving that up. We’re aiming to introduce difficulty levels by late August or early September.
So, how will they work?
Once you complete your first full 2-act run, you’ll unlock the difficulty system. It’s built around modifiers, you pick which ones to enable, each adding a new twist to the challenge. Each modifier comes with a point value, and together they determine your total difficulty score.
💥And here's the twist: difficulty levels will also tie into your city’s development. Right now, beating a boss for the first time gives you Soulink. With difficulty levels, each completed run at a new difficulty will reward additional Soulink, letting you unlock more City upgrades❗
Since we’re fast-tracking some of these features, we’re also going to add a new Beta Profile option in-game. That’s where difficulty levels (and possibly other early features) will land first. This way, your main profile stays untouched and keeps progressing at its original pace, while you can jump into the beta profile to try out what’s next.
[h2]4. A new idea we’re exploring to make the game even more replayable.[/h2]
We came up with an idea that might help make up for the lack of new acts until Act 3 is ready, an Endless Mode. Endless Mode will let you enjoy a carefully crafted deck and quote combos for much longer. After finishing Act 2, the game would let you jump straight into another loop of the run (with a visit to the city in between) to test yourself against stronger versions of enemies.
If that sounds like your kind of fun, we’re already working on getting Endless Mode ready, maybe as soon as next week. And if you’re into the idea, we might even add weekly leaderboards in the future, so you can see who lasts the longest in this endless challenge.
We're curious what you make of the idea. Think it’s worth it? Let us know in the thread, your take really helps us decide what to focus on next. We could even tie Endless Mode together with the difficulty levels we mentioned earlier. Be sure to tell us if that would be something you'd find interesting!
In short:
Here’s a little sneak peek of what’s coming 😉
[h2]❤️ Stay close to Us ❤️[/h2]
【𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙳】💬 https://discord.gg/UytR7dgwtx .
【𝙵𝙰𝙲𝙴𝙱𝙾𝙾𝙺】📰 https://www.facebook.com/acramdigital .
【X】🦾 https://x.com/acramdigital .
【𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙰𝙼】🕹️ https://store.steampowered.com/dev/Acram/ .
【𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚃𝚄𝙱𝙴】🎞️ https://www.youtube.com/@acramdigital6748 .
【𝙸𝙽𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙼】📷 https://www.instagram.com/acramdigital/ .
First off, a huge thank you for your trust in us and for being so active across all our channels. We’ve been reading everything you’ve shared, from kind words to spot-on feedback and we really appreciate it. 🙏 Your involvement means a lot, and it’s already helped us spot things we can improve.
Now that we’re a few days into Early Access, we want to take a moment to sum things up. In this post, we’ll talk about:
- What’s been working well.
- What didn’t go quite as planned (and what we’re doing about it).
- What you can expect from us soon (and a bit later down the line).
- A new idea we’re exploring to make the game even more replayable.
[h2]1. What’s been working well.[/h2]
First of all, we’re just really happy to have reached this point. Launching into Early Access is a huge milestone for us and an important step on the road to version 1.0.
We’re glad to see that the paper-crafted world struck a chord with many of you. Ink is flowing, paper is flying, we’ve already put in an order for more supplies to keep things going. 😉
When it comes to stability, we’re actually feeling pretty good about where things stand. The game isn’t bug-free (yet!), but thanks to your reports, we’ve been able to track down and patch some of the nastier ones pretty fast. First hotfixes are already live, and we’re keeping an eye out for anything else that needs squashing.
We’ve seen a lot of you put in a good number of hours already. 💪 That’s been amazing to watch. Keep hunting down those combos, quoting the literary greats, and slicing through the layers of enemies on your path to victory!
[h2]2. What didn’t go quite as planned (and what we’re doing about it).[/h2]
Not everything went the way we hoped. Some of you mentioned that the game doesn’t offer enough hours of gameplay yet, and yeah, we hear you. We're already working on ways to change that (more on this in a moment).
We also messed up with regional pricing. In the rush of release, we didn’t catch the issue early enough, and some of you ended up paying more than you should have. What made it worse is that after playing for over 2 hours, Steam wouldn’t let you refund and re-buy the game at the new, lower price. That’s on us, and we want to make it right. If this happened to you, head over to this thread, we’ll walk you through the steps to get it sorted.
[h2]3. What you can expect from us soon (and a bit later down the line).[/h2]
Right now, we’re doing our best to answer your questions and go through all the feedback you’re sending our way. And we’ve got to say, your posts and discussions are incredibly constructive and full of sharp observations. 💪 Please keep them coming!
We owe you a proper roadmap, and yes, it’s on the way! We’ll share it as soon as we can. But we also don’t want to leave you hanging with just a “coming soon” message. Based on what we’re seeing, two things are absolutely key for making your experience more complete:
- Adding Act 3.
- Introducing new systems to boost replayability and raise the challenge.
As for replayability and tougher challenges, we’ve decided to speed things up. Originally, difficulty levels were meant to arrive together with Act 3. But since it’s clear how important they are to you, we’re moving that up. We’re aiming to introduce difficulty levels by late August or early September.
So, how will they work?
Once you complete your first full 2-act run, you’ll unlock the difficulty system. It’s built around modifiers, you pick which ones to enable, each adding a new twist to the challenge. Each modifier comes with a point value, and together they determine your total difficulty score.
💥And here's the twist: difficulty levels will also tie into your city’s development. Right now, beating a boss for the first time gives you Soulink. With difficulty levels, each completed run at a new difficulty will reward additional Soulink, letting you unlock more City upgrades❗
Since we’re fast-tracking some of these features, we’re also going to add a new Beta Profile option in-game. That’s where difficulty levels (and possibly other early features) will land first. This way, your main profile stays untouched and keeps progressing at its original pace, while you can jump into the beta profile to try out what’s next.
[h2]4. A new idea we’re exploring to make the game even more replayable.[/h2]
We came up with an idea that might help make up for the lack of new acts until Act 3 is ready, an Endless Mode. Endless Mode will let you enjoy a carefully crafted deck and quote combos for much longer. After finishing Act 2, the game would let you jump straight into another loop of the run (with a visit to the city in between) to test yourself against stronger versions of enemies.
If that sounds like your kind of fun, we’re already working on getting Endless Mode ready, maybe as soon as next week. And if you’re into the idea, we might even add weekly leaderboards in the future, so you can see who lasts the longest in this endless challenge.
We're curious what you make of the idea. Think it’s worth it? Let us know in the thread, your take really helps us decide what to focus on next. We could even tie Endless Mode together with the difficulty levels we mentioned earlier. Be sure to tell us if that would be something you'd find interesting!
In short:
- Your feedback really gives us wings!
- We know we made some mistakes, and we're fixing them.
- Difficulty levels will be added within the next month.
- We shared the idea of Endless Mode, if you like it, we plan to launch it next week, but we need your feedback first.
- While you’re enjoying the new difficulty levels and (hopefully!) Endless Mode, we’ll be working on the Roadmap and Act 3.
Here’s a little sneak peek of what’s coming 😉
[h2]❤️ Stay close to Us ❤️[/h2]
【𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙳】💬 https://discord.gg/UytR7dgwtx .
【𝙵𝙰𝙲𝙴𝙱𝙾𝙾𝙺】📰 https://www.facebook.com/acramdigital .
【X】🦾 https://x.com/acramdigital .
【𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙰𝙼】🕹️ https://store.steampowered.com/dev/Acram/ .
【𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚃𝚄𝙱𝙴】🎞️ https://www.youtube.com/@acramdigital6748 .
【𝙸𝙽𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙶𝚁𝙰𝙼】📷 https://www.instagram.com/acramdigital/ .