Thank you for your advice. Both points are valid. To be honest: payments here at itch.io were almost non-existent until I set a price tag. It is the generously support over Patreon that gives me the chance even to consider it.

Also true is the point that work is work. So it won’t be “just” a hobby anymore. Lack of motivation or a just a creative blockade can have a significant impact. Or people simply not liking what I do anymore. 

I have been self-employed before and know what it is like not to be able to pay you bills anymore. That’s why I am so hesitant and want to make sure I can sustain myself with this.

You are right. From a business prospective, this is what I SHOULD do. And I considered it.

If I intended to do this, I’d have two opportunities:

1. Finish it “properly”, which would mean I won’t be able to become a professional any time soon. And we are talking years here, with all the branches and alternative endings planned already.

2. Cutting Corners

This is what you see on many games on a budget. Even with AAA titles. For me it would mean unsolved story parts, inconsistencies, “cheap” renders, shorter stories, no more animations, and so on. Especially the kind of “multiverse” going on right now, where player choices not only lead to a different ending, but very different branches throughout the game, would have to be stopped.

Yes, I would have a finished game, and I could achieve this in maybe a month, or two. And it might be the right thing to do from a business perspective.

But then again, I did this, and I want to continue it, because I love doing it. 

So I won’t cut any corners here. 

Instead, I try to find a way to do both: Continue with BtC, like I intended it to be, and develop it properly.

So to create BEngel, and finish it, should be shorter and more efficient, than to finish BtC at this point. You only get the scale of BtC, when you played it several times.Because of the alternative branches. I totally messed up with the scale of it.

So I cannot stress this enough: I did not abandon BtC. Just the opposite. I try to find a way, to continue and end it properly.

Thank you for your feedback. As I mentioned before, I did not stop working on the game. The next update will take a while, and I will prioritize (B)Engel for the time being. That said and based on your feedback, I just released the current state of the next update.

Also, please don't pay for the game, if you have already downloaded it. Make sure to download it from "My collections" page in your account, or from the email sent to you when you first downloaded the game. 

You should be able to download it for free this way. 

I would not want you to pay for every update, and I do not want to make people pay who have been supporting me already. 

If you have any issues with that, please contact me.

If you have downloaded the game, before I set the price, you still should be able to download it for free. Look at the "My collections" page in your account. It should be listed there.