View game pageSo it's launch week, and you're looking at that big "BUY NOW" button and that juicy 20% discount ( valid thru September 10th! ) and you notice, "hey, this game is in Early Access, does that mean it's not really ready?" The answer depends on the game and the studio, but our team considers Early Access to be as important as a full Version One launch. This means our core gameplay loop and the supporting gameplay loops around it need to be robust, mostly bug-free, and they need to represent a significant amount of the "Manacaster Experience".
Below, we're going to explain what you'll be able to do right away, and what's still in the pipeline for release post-Early Access launch. In short, you can expect a very deep and robust game that's got some roughness around the edges, but it's solid where it matters most.
Let's start with the thing for which Early Access is somewhat notorious; there will be bugs. There will be hotfixes, usually same-day. Use the in-game bug report button and you can expect a patch within 24 hours or less. This is typical of Early Access games, especially strategy games that require perfect enforcement of the rulebook. We've QA tested as many interactions as reasonably possible, but there will always be corner cases in a game of this depth. We ask you to be patient with bugs you encounter and to report them immediately.
The same should be considered true for UI/UX issues. We rely on your feedback to understand when something feels janky, confusing, or incomplete. Just like bugs, use the in game report to share your thoughts. We have a dedicated pipeline for integrating player feedback into the game and you can typically expect improvements to come along frequently.
With those two expectations set, lets move on to the fun stuff; what you'll be able to do immediately upon Early Access launch.
What's Ready Now
Almost Every PVP & PV-AI Game Mode:
Battle a random human opponent with constructed decks.
Draft against a human opponent or AI
Send a duel request to a specific player.
Fight against our AI and pick their deck if you want.
Play best-of-3 matches or single-game matches.
Build, edit, and save decks.
Collect Equipment Items and Gold in all game modes.
Explore the RPG Mode Map but be aware:
All nodes temporarily unlocked. Attack high level nodes at your own risk!
Only a subset of Equipment Items are enabled ( for your own sanity and ours both ).
RPG-Mode-Only cards & effects like the 17-mana Kaiju have not been added yet!
What's Coming Soon
Unlock RPG Equipment Items with Gold: This will be added soon after launch ( and may already be implemented depending on when you're reading this ) and will be available as a new tab in the Deck Builder. Note: "gold" is only an in-game currency and can only be gotten by winning games. There is no way to spend real money to get Manacaster gold or items. You just have to win games.
Ranked ( ELO-like ) Mode: This will remain disabled until we reach a certain quantity of players and we are confident that bugs will not undermine competitive play.
Proper Map Progression for RPG Mode: We'll have the full map unlocked for around 7 days while we let players goof around and get themselves killed on high level nodes. After that, we'll lock down the nodes and enable the path-based progression system.
Hardcore RPG Mode: This will likely be added at the same time as we finish the progression system for the RPG Map. In typical RPG Mode, you only "lose" when you die for a 6th time ( you get to spawn once per elemental node, and there are only 6 ). In hardcore mode, one game loss and its OVAH. Good luck clearing 24 nodes without losing a single game!
What's Coming Later
Tournaments: For the same reasons as we have deprioritized ELO-like mode, in-game tournament support will be added "later". If the player base grows to a strong competitive ecosystem, we'll fast-track this into the top priority bracket.
3D Mode: Many have asked, and we do have this in our roadmap as a clear "next step". This includes 3D models of the cards' characters and a 3D lobby-world. This is something we'll tackle once we are confident that players actually want it.