Some Changes Around the Patreon (Patreon)

hello folks

this week we're taking the opportunity to blow the dust off the ol' patreon machine. these changes don't make a lot of sense without some context, so let me preface with it:

i find it very likely that some of you will be trying out Starlight this month.

this is not a promise. it's an expectation. things might come up. last night i bricked the entire game by making a ten second change to the letter 'R' in a font. the letter 'R' was very cursed yesterday even aside from that. i don't know what's going to happen. but at the very least, i am leaving room for it to happen.

is the starlight demo done? no.

it is not ready for testing. there is still a lot that i need to add. however, it is done enough that i can potentially think about getting some of y'all playing it for the sake of pre-testing feedback, and getting you all more actively involved in the process of making it. 

appreciate cass. she's the one encouraging me to get out of my own head and actually finish the damn game so people can play it. 

so, in preparation for ^ this, i've made a few changes around the patreon.

first up, i've had to change so that we now charge up-front whenever someone joins or ups their pledge. i don't like having to do that but when we've had testing in the past there have been some Punks that join, get the test build, and dip without actually contributing anything. aside from being sketchy, that is not fair to you all who have been here showing up and legitimately supporting the project, and this is the most reliable way to prevent that.

patreon has led me to believe that existing patrons should not be affected by the change at all and i am dearly hoping that is true. but if anyone does have any sort of issues as a result of this change please talk to me so we can figure it out. refunds are an option.  

along with the above, i've enabled annual pledges! how do those work? i don't really know. i just saw that they were a thing and enabled the option for anyone who actually wants to do it. there is a 15% discount for anyone who pledges a year up front if that is a thing you would want to do. i appreciate any form of support and just y'all being here is already good enough for me <3

tier changes-- 

• i have put away a couple rewards that were not working out, namely the focus group one (because i'd rather have a wider range of input), the shout-out one (since i really don't like any form of advertising anyway), and the video one (since that never happened in the first place).  i suspect that few people will miss these.
• in return, i've added a super-VIP discord role and super secret VIP room for the Level 50+ patrons to Mingle. I feel like they historically haven't gotten enough recognition, and while I appreciate everyone being here a lot, they do make up a substantial building block of our stability here. anyway, this is so secret that you don't even know about it. it's so secret that even i don't know about it.
• i've also declared the Level 50+ group to be eligible for special pre-alpha testing. i have consistently had the feeling that a group of 100+ people (holy heck where did you all come from????) is a little rough to start with for the first wave of a test because if there is a crash then y'all are all gonna die on the same crash. and if we make a fix that then breaks something else, no one is going to find that. .... and 1001 similar scenarios.  the pre-alpha group will just be a first line of defense, should they so choose to volunteer as tributes. 
• lower level tiers will not be forgotten! one thing i plan on adding for pretty much anyone's benefit is sort of a vault where you can go see a better-organized array of all of our past development madness. a lot of other patreons do this thing so it's probably overdo for us. although i would like to have had that done for today, it is going to take a non-insignificant amount of time to sort through all of our history and populate that vault, so i will probably save doing that for mid-testing. but it will happen.

our goals have also finally been updated for the like first time in several years to better reflect my focus right now. y'all have been fantastic at keeping me afloat, and i appreciate that so much. but i would also like to be able to pay the other people who have been helping out with the projects. that feels like an unfathomable amount of money right now, but if we're going to keep making quality things and keep making them at a pace of more frequently than one release per year, i will need to be able to bring others on board with me part or full time properly and have them with us for the entire process. that's the direction we're moving in, anyway.

that's a long term goal, of course, but an important one. and i appreciate everyone here for sticking with us even this long <3

i am tired of posting words. i want to post content. i want to actually release things. but i feel like they still need so much more work.

soon.