Development Update #62 (Patreon)

Ah. Feel that? It's the feeling of a lot of progress. I survived my "vacation." I also managed to get in some good writing for Chapter 10. If you are in the Discord server, you might have seen that I also spent some time on my marketplace pages, a new SFW trailer for To Be A King, and a new demo of the game. I usually prioritize render work, but being unable to do those during the vacation meant that I had other things I could stop neglecting and work on. The website also got an overhaul, though it still needs a bit of work. To round out the list, I updated some graphics for future To Be A King releases (starting with Chapter 9). A few of those graphics had been around since Chapter 5 or even longer, and they needed to get some polish.

Oh, and I worked on a guide/walkthrough for Volume 1. I know there have been requests for this before, but I needed to find more than just choice information to add. I think you'll like what I came up with. I've got it being proofread/checked for accuracy (hilariously a word my spellchecker just flagged as misspelled) by a few folks, and then I'll look it back over before releasing it.

The march towards a completed Chapter 9 continues, and with it my march towards a completed Volume 2 gets closer (yet still so far). I'm doing away with the progress graphic, at least for the next few releases. Why? Well, because I'm now able to announce release dates well ahead of time. No more reading the progress graphic tea leaves for an idea of when I'll be done. Chapter 9 will release on September 13. Barring some catastrophe, Chapter 10 will be released on November 15, just about two months after Chapter 9. 4 chapter releases in 8 months? Yep. That is what it is shaping up to be.

July was a good month on Patreon with the release happening. We almost got as many patrons as we did in May, when Chapter 7 launched. At least I think we did. Patreon completely changed how they track patron numbers in the past couple of weeks, and now I have no idea. As usual, a big drop off in Patreon numbers happened at the beginning of August. I sincerely appreciate those of you who stick around for multiple months here. It shows me that I am on the right track and also helps me plan my spending.

I'll end by talking about Steam. I finished testing my Steam build while I was on vacation, and all achievements and code work. Now it's just continuing to market it. I appreciate what must have been several of you promoting it, as I got a nice boost of folks adding it to their wishlist over 10 days. I hope those wishlist additions keep coming. You may get tired of hearing me talk about Steam for the next couple of months. It is just that there are a lot of folks who would never sub to Patreon or find the game otherwise. I am hoping Steam can really boost To Be A King here as we enter the final stretch with the story. New chapters will continue to be exclusive to Patreon. If you're wondering how the Patreon and Steam versions differ, I'll have a post up soon going over that.

Now, please enjoy the Chapter 9 release announcement video up top. It was fun to do with my After Effects template, and hopefully won't give away too much of what is going to happen. I will definitely need Chapter 10 following close behind or else I anticipate riots. We haven't ended on a cliffhanger like we do in Chapter 9 for several releases. I'll have some NSFW previews from Chapter 9 for patrons later this week. Now I'll get back to writing Chapter 10. Have a great week, everyone!