The Plan (Patreon)

This is a major update that will affect all patrons. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

Hello everyone!

Now that the overhaul is out and I'm ready to shift my full focus to finishing Chapter 3, I wanted to share an update on how things are going to look moving forward. I've been thinking a LOT about the future of the project lately, and I've made some tough decisions that I think I'm ready to share with you now.

First of all, Chapter 3 will probably NOT be finished by the end of 2020. I will let you know when to expect it once we're closer to completion, but it will likely be in late January. With monthly builds all year, and the huge overhaul in 0.29, I haven't had as much time to devote to the new Chapter as I'd have liked. That brings me to the main focus of this post, and the main changes I'm making moving forward.

I've been working on Haremon now for over three years. I've been crunching just about every month of those three years, to push out a minor update every month while working on new Chapters in the background. My reasoning was that I needed to have something to post every month to keep people happy with their patronage. However, this approach has always been problematic. It causes me to put the important work on hold in order to make something I can post right away, which usually ends up being something superfluous that doesn't need to be there in the first place. More importantly, it leads to an exhausting amount of work for little actual payoff.

As a result, I've been feeling extraordinarily burnt-out and overwhelmed for the past several months. I've hesitated to say that, because I don't want to shake anyone's faith in me or the project. I want to assure you that I will overcome this and complete the game, but for that to happen, two steps need to be taken: first, I need to give myself time to recover when I'm feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted. Second, I need to tighten my focus. That means streamlining development to focus on Haremon's main story, avoid devoting time to unnecessary features, and finish Haremon 1.0 as soon as reasonably possible.

To that end, I've made a difficult decision about the future of the project: going forward, I will no longer be adhering to a monthly upload schedule. Instead, I will post an update probably every 2-3 months, whenever I have actual quality content available to share. I realize that this may be a dealbreaker for many of my patrons, since the monthly builds are the main thing you receive for backing the project. However, I have thought about this a LOT over the past year, and have decided that it is the best thing to do for the sake of the game. If I keep trying to post updates each and every month, delaying new story content to do so, development will drag on for several more years, and I will be constantly burning myself out for minor updates. I hope the overhaul today will show you the kind of content I can make when I actually take my time and don't rush for a monthly upload.

The decision to change this schedule will be beneficial to the game, and to my own health, but it will also be beneficial for you, the players. It's the focus on monthly builds that has led to the last two chapters taking a year each to complete. If I'm able to focus strictly on new story content, then I can get more of the good stuff to you guys quicker than before. Not to mention, new chapters mean new Haremon, and new Haremon mean new H scenes. So, you do the math.

Despite these benefits, I know that the decision to stop monthly releases will probably lead to a sizeable loss of patrons, and I fully understand why. If you do decide to leave, please know that I truly appreciate your patronage so far, and I hope you will be happy with the final product when it's finished. I don't take my responsibility to you lightly. I strongly believe that your patronage is something I have to earn. And if I'm no longer earning it, then I don't deserve to continue receiving your pledge.

One last thing. As most of you know, I'm a solo dev, and Haremon is my first real experience in game development. The past three years have been a constant process of learning for me. Learning what works and what doesn't. Learning how to effectively manage my time and funds. And most importantly, learning my own limits. Each of these learning experiences has made me a better developer, but it has come at the cost of a ton of time, money, relationships, and happiness. I want to sincerely thank you for your patience as you follow me on this journey, and I'm confident that when the game is finally complete, you will agree that it was all worth it.

I think that's about all I have to say. Shortly, I will edit the Patreon tier descriptions to reflect this change. Once again, I really do understand if you choose to cancel your patronage due to this. I'm posting this today so that if you want to unpledge, you can hopefully do so before December 1st. (If you are charged for December before you're able to unpledge, just ask me for a refund and I'll happily oblige.)

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your support so far, and hope you will be pleased with the content these changes will bring to Haremon. <3

TLDR: In order to streamline development and release the last few story chapters as soon as possible, I will no longer be promising monthly builds. I will post new content as it is available, probably every 2-3 months. This will allow me to focus mainly on story content without taking thousands of hours to add unnecessary features just to have something to post each month. I understand if you wish to unpledge because of this, and I sincerely thank you for your support so far.