Q: What is Steam?

A: Steam is a program that allows people to buy and download games for their PC. It is completely free to make an account and contains thousands of popular games. You can get started by following this link: https://store.steampowered.com/about

Q: What is Early Access?

A: Early Access is a program that Steam has for developers to sell their game while the game is still being developed. This allows people to play the game much earlier than they normally would be able to and also allows the developers to get some support during the development process of the game. Because the game is unfinished we are selling it at a reduced price and if you buy the game now you will get the current version as well as automatically get all future versions of the game, including the finished game, as soon as they come out.

Q: When will the game be finished?

A: We are still working on nailing down an exact release date, however we plan to be working on the game for at least a year after our Early Access launch which was on February 7th 2020.

Q: Is the game only for PC?

A: Currently the game is only available for PC. However, we are making plans to do a port to the Nintendo Switch if we get enough interest in the game during the early stages of Early Access. If things go well we would also like to port the game to iOS and Android so people can play and make levels on the go. Finally, we may do a Playstation 4 and Xbox One port as well. If you are interested in the game but don’t have a compatible PC to play it on please let us know by sending us an email at PrincessCastleQuest@gmail.com. We would love to get the game on as many platforms as possible and your input might sway our decision on which platforms come first. The current PC build only supports Windows, however we plan to provide support for OSX and Linux sometime soon.

Q: How long have you been working on the game?

A: We started this version of the game over 2 years ago in December of 2017 using a game engine I had been working on for a another project called Const Port. However the original concept of the game started when I was a freshman in High School. My brother and I were in a programming class together and we worked on a simple puzzle game for our final project that we called “Princess Dungeon Smasher”. The wooden box sprite and the basic concept of water, lava, and holes has carried through in every iteration of the game since. Some of the animations, like the princess falling in water, haven’t even changed since that version.

Q: Why release a free demo?

A: Every person working on this project is here because we love making games and we want to create something that we love and hone our skills in the process. The game is self-published and advertised and as such we aren’t required to maximize our monetary income from the game. Our main goal is to grow a community of people that love to create, share, and play levels together. The demo is a way for us to get the mechanics and editor of the game into as many hands as possible to enable people to explore the ideas without a barrier to entry. While we are still in Early Access and the game is unfinished it also allows people to see the current state of the game before deciding if they want to purchase it. It’s also much easier to distribute the demo to people who don’t have a Steam account by hosting it on Itch.io.