Finally - Charlie is out on iOS!

Hi all,

I know it's been a long time since the last post, so before we get to the good part, let me start with an apology.

Apology

I imagine a lot of you might have lost hope for Charlie already, or you think that this Patreon was a scam or you're angry with me for not updating you. To be honest, I don't blame you - my communication has been poor, progress was extremely slow and many of the promises I made were not fulfilled.

There were a lot of things happening in my life in the past months, both good and bad, but it meant my attention was spread a lot and my time was very limited. I can give you a hundred more reasons why it was or wasn't possible sooner and you might choose to believe me or not, so instead I'd rather apologise and ask for your forgiveness. I have failed in managing the community around Charlie, for informing you guys more regularly, for holding true to my timelines and valuing you enough.

So, for all of this, I deeply and sincerely apologise and I hope that today's update can make up for a tiny bit of your faith in Charlie.

Charlie has been released on iOS today! 🥩

I've got some time to work on Charlie recently and I didn't want to post another update without some kind of "hard proof" that things are moving forward.

I am very happy to announce that Charlie was released on iOS today in all markets and regions! 🎉 It should become fully available within 24 hours to everyone, so if it doesn't yet show up in your region please give it a few hours until it shows up - some people might see it sooner than others, but everyone will see it wihin 24 hours.

Here's a direct link to the iPhone version:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/charlie-the-steak/id644918861

Here's a direct link to the iPad version:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/charlie-the-steak-hd/id644917768

For everyone supporting (or who supported in the past) at Medium tier or higher I will be sharing the codes to unlock the full version of the game as promised. The codes are unique to every person, so they can be blocked in case they leak publicly, so please do not post them anywhere online. It is OK if you share it with your family members or close friends by putting the code in on their iPhone/iPad.

Just to note (as some people still keep writing this), there was never any official Android port of Charlie - so the game is NOT available officially on the Play Store. As mentioned in one of my last updates, we did start working on an Android port, but more on that in the next section.

Android status

As you know, I hired an external engineer with the Patreon money to help me build the Android port. I hoped this would resolve the issue with me not having enough time and allow us to get an Android port of Charlie sooner.

Unfortunately, it turned out the progress on the developer's side was very slow and the cost was getting much higher than originally anticipated. Earlier in Decemeber I had to pause the developer work and there was nothing done on the Android port since then. In all honesty, I didn't have the energy and time to find a new engineer before the holiday time, so I plan to revisit it again in January.

I will do what I can to make sure it happens, but I don't want to promise anything right now as it depends on who I am able to find to work on this and how much time I will be able to dedicate to the onboarding of the developer.

That said, I am not giving up on this yet and I will try to see it happen in the next year. Please, do not take the Android status as a request for support on Patreon. I will be working on that no matter if there's a Patreon or not - I just don't want to promise a timeline. But more on the below.

Future of Patreon

I am currently contemplating stopping the (paid) Patreon entirely as I feel like I'm unable to provide any more value to you after the iOS launch today before the Android port launches (which could take a few months at least).

I never had any intentions of making anyone feel scammed and the comments appearing here and on reddit are making me feel very sad, so I think the Patreon might be doing more harm than good to anyone.

Let me know your thoughts on this topic, if you agree then I'll stop the Patreon in January and continue the work with whatever I can afford for the external developer and the rest I'll do myself.

Please, remember that you can unsubscribe at any point and if you have been charged recently you request a refund and I'll approve it.

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Uff, that's it for today folks. It's a rather long, but very overdue update with some hopefully positive news for all of you on iOS.

Lastly, I'd like to wish you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. I really hope 2025 will be the best year yet for all of us.

Cheers,
Dom