Personal Trainer will no longer be a free game.

TLDR: The latest version of Personal Trainer will no longer be available for free. $5+ tiers will receive the latest updates the moment they're available. $2+ tier will receive it one week later. Free public version will be available but be one version behind.

------------------------------------------

Hi everyone, I wanted to make an announcement that Personal Trainer will no longer have the latest version be released for free. I've been giving this some thought over the last few weeks and want to explain myself to you in the spirit of transparency. Forgive me for the incoming wall of text.

I spent from Fall '17 to June '18 learning how to use all of the software that's involved with making a game. Taking online courses on writing and coding. It was a really fun hobby, but I also had time to enjoy all of my other hobbies like playing video games, fishing with the wife, and hanging out with my friends.

Since then, this game has gotten a decent amount of success in terms of followers and community support. Nothing is more exciting that seeing a notification indicating that there's a new comment from someone who's played the game. However, I now recognize that this game is no longer just a hobby. In order to meet monthly updates and develop enough content to make those updates worth downloading, I've had to eliminate all of the other things I enjoy in my free time. I come home from my boring office job, work on the game till midnight, go to sleep, go to work and the cycle continues. I hope this doesn't sound like complaining because I do love being a VN developer. It brings me a lot of joy and I have a passion for it. However, I need to ask myself, what is the end goal?

I'm devoting all my free time towards development, yet the game's free as if it's just a casual hobby. What is the long term? Do I continue working on my hobby until this game is finished, and then what? I've given it thought and there are two possible routes I see.

Route 1: I can resume treating this as a casual hobby. Work on the game when I have time, but also make time for myself and my hobbies. Updates may come out once every 2 or 3 months.

Route 2: I start to treat my time as a developer more seriously. Focus on meeting monthly content as I normally do without neglecting the need for financial support. Although not guaranteed, there is now the chance of acquiring funds to build a dedicated rendering rig to cut down development time. There is also the far distant dream of one day being able to end my corporate career and focus on developing these games full time.

After speaking with some of you as well as other devs and community members, I've decided to pursue route 2.

What this means:

The latest version of Personal Trainer will now be available for download for $5+ Patrons. The $1 tier will be replaced with a $2 tier. All $2 Patrons will receive the latest version of the game 1 week after release. The free public version will be one version behind the latest (Roughly one month). I have downloaded a csv of all the $1 pledges for this month and will send you the next update as soon as it's available. This way you will have time to cancel your pledge entirely or adjust it for next month. For those of you in higher tiers who are thinking about canceling your pledge, please send me a message on Patreon so that I know to send you a link for next months update regardless if you continue to pledge or not.

What this DOESN'T mean:

I will not be breaking apart parts of this game and putting it behind paywalls. The content of the game remains as it is. There will be no "premium" versions or anything of that sort.

------------------
I will try to go down the long and hard (no pun intended) road of being an adult content developer. This means I will be setting Patreon goals, attempting to acquire support, and ultimately shoot for the highest goal possible of any developer, to quit my job and work full time on this game (and hopefully other games too). Even if I end up failing at acquiring substantial support, fear not, for this game will be seen through completion. I've made a promise to you all to never abandon the game and I intend to keep that promise.

It really bugs me that I have to delay release to the public. I've been pretty outspoken about how "early access" is just an artificial delay. In the past few months, I've tried holding polls and reaching out to the community to see what other sort of meaningful rewards I can provide rather than doing "early access". Unfortunately it seems that this is the primary way of encouraging support. Personal Trainer has been chosen among 9 other games to be featured on a certain popular forum, yet out of those listed this is the only game that's free.

Finally, I want to thank you all so much. You are the ones who have pledged and supported this game despite it being free. There was no incentive other than the generosity from your hearts to support a project you enjoy and believe in. This is not lost on me. I can't stress enough for just how thankful I am for you all.

Once again, THANK YOU all for supporting and believing in this project!