S-Tier Stands for Secretary... Right? (Patreon)

As mentioned earlier in the month, we're doing a revamp of Patreon tiers to better fit the ongoing structure of the game and give you all more options.

I'll break down the full details bellow, but for the tl;dr highpoint summary:

• We're reworking tiers, including adding some new higher tiers with more options
• While the current 1$ tier is technically going away, anyone currently on it can remain so and continue to be granted access to the patreon pre-release builds.

For anyone who wants the full details, here is a summary of tiers, in order (and stick around to the end of the post for some game status updates):

The old "Be a Patreon" tier is being retained only for those already on it - if you're already there, and you're happy with it, you can stay, but it will no longer be offered for new patreons.

"I Just Want to Play" - For $3/month this you'll be able to help support our continuing development, and gain access to the patreon pre-release builds/patreon section of the discord. It ~replaces the old "Be a Patron" 1$ tier, save that it does not allow voting.

"Be a Patreon" - For $5/month you'll get access to the pre-release versions/discord, and will be able to vote in all polls.

"Full of Surprises" - for $10/month you'll have access to pre-releases, be able to vote AND be able to make suggestions for scenes/items to be included in polls (for example suggesting which scenes should be candidates for illustration, or suggesting new items, or the recent "corporate retreat" polls where some of the beach activities were suggested by Patreons).

"Outsized Influence" - For $25/month you'll have a greater input into future content, being able to access pre-release, make suggestions for polls, and have your vote counted 10x normal. In addition 1 member at this tier per month will be selected to suggest a small scene (1-3 passages) to be written into the game.

"Fashion Designer" - For $50/month (limit: 5 Patreons at a time) you'll be able to have direct input on the game, with the same basic features as "Outsized Influence" (pre-release, 10x vote, suggestions in polls), but you'll also be able to dictate 1 item/month to be added into the game.

"VIP" - COMING SOON! While not live yet there will be a final limited-membership tier going live in coordination with a future release that will allow you to have an (or is that fuck-on?) appearance in the game of yourself or an OC of your choice for a 1-3 passage interaction with the MC.

Thank you all for sitting through that, and now for a quick update on the state of the game:

0.7.12:
The public release has been one of the smoothest to date (thanks all of you Patreons who helped with the pre-release testing!), and while we have found and fixed over 167 bugs, very few of them have been severe. With a bit of luck the newly released 0.7.12.4 will be the final 0.7.12 build.

Since releasing 0.7.12 publicly it has grown by an additional 3856 words and 22 new passages, including an additional option at the bodyshop, a new option for those who want to avoid permanent chastity, an expanded early game tutorial and better "backstop" handling to help those who might otherwise get stuck on advancement.

0.8.0:
Despite the near-record size of the release, pre-release testing has been going relatively smoothly with many bugs fixed 5390 words and 24 passages added, as well as new options for glasses as an equipable item and a handful of other new items and colour shifts of existing.

Art is still in progress, but it looks like we are on-track for a public release in July (matching our goal of a release every other month).

In addition to the public release there will be another large "survey" for us to gather more detailed feedback on the state of the game.

0.8.1:
With 0.8.0 settling down the poll to determine the topic for 0.8.1 will be coming soon - we'll be kicking off a smaller poll later this week and when that finishes up it'll be time to choose 0.8.1... Will prostitution break its "always the bridesmaid" streak? Will the cook finally have his day? Will our diligent wiki-writer Sora finally get to go to church? Remember this will be the first poll with the new tiers so get hyped!

FUTURE!
Thanks to some additional writing time (which, alas, is at an end as "work" picks up again) we've been making some serious progress on the backlog - with most of the rest of the game drafted or designed. Thanks to this surge the current backlog sits at just over 530k words/2087 passages, which should enable us (art depending...) to maintain smooth releases going forward. As currently estimated there remains ~85k additional words to write raw, plus another estimated 50k that will be required in the course of merging/"filler." So there's still a lot to do but we continue to forge ahead and thank you all for coming along with us on the journey as we've grown the game to the (as of 0.8.0 pre-release) point of being larger than the collected works of Shakespeare with almost a full "bible's" worth of content still to come!