Why Early Access?
“TY the Tasmanian Tiger is much beloved, and unfortunately rather inaccessible these days, due to the platforms the game was originally released on. Updating the game to work on PCs and releasing in Early Access will allow us to get feedback on the controls, the achievements and all the other modern ideas that we'll be adding, from the fans - and hopefully good ideas for further improvements to make!

We considered launching a KickStarter to assist with the port funding, but decided we'd prefer to put our time and energy into doing the work instead of running the campaign - so putting the game out into Early Access was an option to help us make the port happen at a faster pace!

Once we have worked on the first game, we will then investigate also bringing TY2 and TY3 to Steam, as separate products.”
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“The exact date for coming out of Early Access will depend on feedback but we estimate sometime in the third quarter of 2016.”
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?
“The full version will include:
Steam achievements
Steam leaderboards, for the time attack sections.
Steam Trading Cards
Steam cloud saves
Steam controller support
Vsync changes such that the games will run at 60fps (the game was originally designed to be locked to 30 or 60fps for the NTSC versions; so we are unlikely to change to being completely unlocked)
Improved keyboard and mouse controls
Improved textures, from our original source material, where we can (and some re-painting, where we can't)

And we will also be investigating:
Graphical updates to include features like anti-aliasing, improved shadows and screen space post-effects
Improved camera controls in TY1
Improved draw distances, grass density, etc
And hopefully even more upgraded features!

To be clear - at this stage we are not intending to be adding more detail to the actual 3D objects in the game - the HD-ising is from HD resolutions, increased texture detail, increased draw distances, new shadow and lighting systems and increased object density.”
What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“Note:
There are currently animation issues (in that all the animated characters are invisible) on lower-spec graphics cards (IntelHD 4000, low-end laptop AMD/ATI cards). We're looking in to this but do not yet have a fix.

The game is in an initial playable state, with first pass implementation of:
keyboard and mouse control (with editable keybindings in the UI)
Support for XInput compatible controllers (main testing done on an X360 controller)
full screen or windowed option, maintaining a 16:9 aspect ratio, initially tested up to 2560x1440. Full screen runs at the desktop's resolution. Windowed mode can be resized by dragging the edge of the window.
improved shadows
improved reflections
improved draw distances
initial achievements
initial leaderboards

Please note that:
there is not currently any mouse control of the UI system, this will be forthcoming during Early Access
Some of the lighting and brightness/contrast values are still in progress, to match the look of the game to the original console release.
The newly added text for the UI and other areas are in English at the moment. We'll do a FIGS translation of those when we get closer to release.
For initial release, full screen resolution is set to the native desktop resolution
For initial release, windowed mode resolution is set to 1280x720 - with the ability to drag the window size and use the maximize button etc
There is no borderless windowed mode at this stage
There are some graphical glitches

The min-spec PC requirements will also be reviewed and updated before release - so we'd just like to make sure that people know that this may change to requiring a higher-spec machine. Our aim for the min-spec is to run the game at 720p, at 30fps, with all detail settings at "low".

And there are no doubt some crash bugs through the game, as we are restoring some of the code from 15 years ago!”
Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?
“The game will increase in price, once it has completed Early Access.”
How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?
“Feedback from the community will be very important to development. We intend on utilizing the Steam forums, as well as our established social media pages, to maintain frequent communication. In particular, we will be looking to garner feedback on:
controls (especially keyboard and mouse controls) - but the controller is also important, as it's had to be rewritten, and we want to improve the original camera
ideas for achievements
issues with the texture improvements, including textures you think need up-res'ing
ideas for further graphical improvements to make (post-processing, etc)
general comments on problems with PC graphics, audio etc
gameplay issues and frustrations discussed with the community, that fit into the style of game (eg we won't add guns, but we would be open to discussing changes to swimming controls using the keyboard and mouse)
And, of course, any general bugs you hit while playing!”