Audio Q&A | Patreon Weekly #117

Hey Patrons!

Firstly, you might notice that there’s an audio file in this weekly! I’m trying something out as a possible substitute to the Patreon livestreams. Rather than streaming a Q&A, I would instead answer questions in a more podcasty format once a month, along with a quick summary of the last and upcoming month. This preserves a dedicated place to ask questions, is more timezone-neutral, provides a new format for people to consume Patreon updates, and is much less time-consuming for me to produce. Give it a listen and tell me what you think!

Aside from that, I’ve got another update following the release of v1.0.0, and more progress on Patreon pins. Also look out for that refresh of the Patreon page, which should happen sometime this week.

About That App Store Release

Since the last weekly I’ve released v1.0.1 and v1.0.2. There will likely be a v1.0.3 as well, as I continue fixing up some various hiccups with the new music system. These issues are getting increasingly rare though, and so far I think the remaining problems with it are only affecting desktop users.

As for the App Store, you might remember that last week I mentioned that it might make Shattered financially stable all on its own. That’s looking more and more likely by the day. While I can’t know where the game will eventually settle in terms of sales, it has not yet slowed down, and is in fact currently outperforming itself from launch day! These numbers will presumably settle over time, but my estimation for when that’ll happen and what number they’ll settle on keeps going up.

Promising Pin Progress

Since last week I have narrowed down the field, and now believe I have a good candidate for manufacturing loyalty reward pins! Once again, I apologize for taking so long on this process. I encountered initial annoyance at finding a manufacturer and let this process sit on the backburner for far too long. I plan to contact the manufacturer this week and should hopefully be able to get the manufacturing started this month!

As a reminder, the plan is for Patrons to get a physical pin shipped to them by mail once they have been a patron for 12 months or longer (lapses in subscription are fine). We settled on a 1” pin with a polished black metal plate and hard enamel filling. It will likely have a rubber clutch and come with an accompanying backing card (design TBD).

One thing that’s particularly exciting is that this manufacturer supports multiple pin colors or plating types in one order. You might recall that I was considering glitter pins for people who reach the 24 month milestone. That naturally raises the question of what I’ll do for 36 months, so I had the idea to create a special pin with gold metal and black filling for those who make it to 3 years! Here’s a rough mockup of how each of these pins might look, to give you an idea:

Please let me know if you like this idea! I haven’t locked anything in yet so these plans can be changed if you would prefer something else. I have also considered making pins in multiple colors, and letting longer-term patrons pick a new color to have each year.