One of the big questions you have to answer when making a game is how much will it cost to play? There there are many different monetization methods that range from the simplest; pay some money and it's yours forever. To the ever complex live-service micro transaction. I have decided that for Engineer Alpha I will only ever be using the simple method of you pay the price you see and you get the entire game. I want this game to be around for as long as possible and the only way I can see that will do that is by only ever charging the player for one thing, access to the game. Anything else has a tendency to create a rift between what is good for the players and what is good for profits. As well as selling anything else is like saying "we choose to make the game worse so we can sell you a solution". None of this sits well with me and I believe in leading by example so that is what I am going to do. Also in that same vain the game will never go on sale or have a drop in price so long as it is being actively developed.
The price will however go up. The first price increase is planned to take place this summer (so no sooner the June 21 2022) after the release of Version 0.3. The current plan is to increase to $10 usd.
As for the release of 0.3 the current hope is to have a development version available here on steam within the next two weeks. This will be an optional branch that you can choose to get if you want to try out the latest toys before they go live for everyone in the following weeks.