I'm very happy to announce that early access is available. :) I'm hoping you'll enjoy the game!
The Campaign
The campaign is four sectors long, and continues past the first scenario (the current demo), including 597 additional zones to explore (the demo has 73), with 18 more rifts and monster types, such as robots and a full set of endgame elementals.
Each new sector in the campaign also unlocks more NPCs, parties, rooms, items, and paths.
Playstyles
Along with the standard playstyle, you can choose from the following:
Explorer (no allied combat NPCs)
Homefront (no allied civilian NPCs)
Loner (no allied NPCs at all)
You can mix those with various difficulty settings such as bonus monster levels, bonus monster levels per X turns, monster leveling cap, starting base resources, and more.
Party System
If you're playing with allied combat NPCs, you can now join their parties as a support member. The party leader will decide where to go in the wilds, and you can attack, buff, heal, scavenge, study, and so forth as the party explores.
Parties have a theme, so the scavenger party will focus on scavenging materials, while the recon party will focus on exploring, and the scholar party will focus on studying artifacts.
There are ten parties in all, including two more gathering parties, two tech-focused combat parties, and three magic-focused combat parties.
You can leave a party at any time. The party finder is found at the Pylon.
Some of the Features Available Now
1 campaign
4 sectors
20 rifts
21 monster factions, with several types per faction (scout, guardian, ranger, etc), and various abilities and elemental alignments per faction
670 zones
10 combat NPC parties, with 50 members (all of which use items and abilities you can unlock or buy, or help improve)
4 playstyles, and a mix of difficulty settings
18 starting civilian paths to choose from (with more unlocked later)
21 starting combat paths to choose from (with more unlocked later)
6 zone utility paths
6 equipment proficiency paths
9 magic types, with spells for buffs, debuffs, damage, and heals
A host of stats to level, including affinities, attributes, resists, skills, power, pierce, steal, reflect, and proficiencies (many of which have a version per magic type and physical)
51 starting paths in shop (with more unlocked later), that you can mix and match with no limitations
139 starting items in shop (with more unlocked later), including weapons, armor, and accessories
122 starting stat upgrade categories in shop (stats can be upgraded via lore, system, alchemy, infusion, and more)
Training stations for stats
A host of persistent food, drink, and jukebox buffs to choose from at the cafeteria
Research projects to increase equipment levels and allow you to upgrade your gear level at the shop
Crafting projects to increase supply level for items in the shop
Construction projects to upgrade room levels and thus unlock more levels of path and stat purchases in shop, or allow more research levels
Extraction and harvest projects to get resources
Refining projects to convert raw materials into useful resources
Infinite stat shop (where each successive purchase gets more expensive)
Party system, in which you join NPC parties, and ride along and support as they explore
Mana-based path leveling system; some paths provide different abilities or stats, depending on the mana you spend leveling them
Hacking and lockpicking
Toggle-able items like jetpacks and force fields
Loot, including artifacts that unlock shop upgrades for everyone, and serums that increase your stats
Future Pricing
I intend to the raise the price on full release, depending on how much content I add, and then wait at least a month to start doing sales (probably synced to Steam's sales).
I intend to start smaller with discounts, and then raise them over time.
Demo Status
As a gamer, I've always liked being able to play a demo to decide if I want to buy a game, and not be worrying about whether my time is up to return a game.
So, I intend to always have the demo live.
Also, while I don't have Steam cloud save support, I intend that you should be able to copy a savegame folder from the demo to the full game (as long as the versions match), and be able to continue the campaign.
Note that this update -will- break any existing demo saves.
Major changes since the old demo
Major changes include the party system, as well as the infinite stat shop, the new playstyles and difficulty settings, and a bunch of interface improvements.
Also, you can no longer buy gear or mana for credits (since that devalued crafting projects and the mana absorption mechanics).