On v.0.5 and the future of Thicker Treat

Hi. Voca here. Sorry for the silence. More than the now evident delay, there's another matter that recently came up. I've been going back and forth writing this post for the last couple of days after learning some not great information and trying to figure out what to do about it moving forward. Long story short: after talking about side gigs with a coworker, I recently found out that, come 2023, my current company is going to start demanding employees to report all external sources of income. They're creating a new department to look into and then approve/reject side businesses to avoid conflicts of interest. And, while Thicker Treat creates no such conflict, showing income in my taxes from making a NSFW dating sim is not going to get me a smiley "approved" stamp either.

So I find myself writing this, which is hard. I consider myself more of a gamer than a developer, and I know how sh*tty it is to find a nice, enjoyable game in the genre, just to have it cancelled halfway through. On that line, my plan for Thicker Treat has always been (and kind of still is) to see it through to its conclusion as a full game. However, beginning January I'll no longer be able to accept support through Patreon or other channels. In fact, as of today, I have paused all billing for a month and encourage you to cancel your memberships accordingly to avoid any issues. 

Where does that leave v.0.5, Gabrielle, Wanda, and Deborah?

Like I suggested above, this does not mean the game is cancelled. It just means that I'll have to cut funding for development and slow things down substantially to manage the costs myself (electricity, 3D assets, etc.) In fact, I'll resume finishing what's left of v.0.5 between Christmas and New Year's Eve and it will be accessible to all Oct, Nov, and Dec patrons as promised. After that, the plan is to add Wanda's and Gabrielle's path for v.0.6 and make it available as early access to all 2022 patrons in 2023. (I figure, it's only fair to have that 'extra' content to thank everyone for their support.) And, after that? I guess I'll move any development news back to the forum.

I know it's not what you all might have been hoping to hear, so I'm sorry about that. I'll continue discussing this (and answering any questions/comments) in a separate post tomorrow,