Benefits of Becoming A Patron

EDITED August 2024 to include updated information.

Hello everyone! I'd like to talk about my Patreon. Specifically the benefits you get from being a patron from any of the three tiers. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is to advertise and give people incentives to become a patron of a specific tier. Another reason is that I want to communicate both to you and to myself and what it is I'm exactly providing to my patrons. I will be updating this page sporadically. Without further Ado, here are the benefits of being a patron in all three tiers.

Basic Tier ($3)

Access to builds a month early: This is the most common reason why anyone would become a patron to me. Followers of other FVNs would understand this system quite well. Patrons have access to the latest build of By Your Hands whereas the public will have last month's build. I really don't want to explain this anymore because I can never explain it properly. Patrons get new builds earlier than the public, that's all you need to know. Got it? Good, you got it. I don't even care that it's impossible for me to know what response you're giving me now as I'm typing this, let's just move on to the next point. Well, one last thing I'll mention is that I update both my mailing list and itch.io (as well as other social media but those aren't worth mentioning) when new builds are available to patrons and when they're available to the public. Patrons also get new builds of Barachoda Bloom two weeks early, but that's less of an incentive to become a patron since BB is currently on hiatus. 

Access to polls relating to By Your Hands: Every month, I create a poll for my patrons to decide features and other elements of By Your Hands. Examples of previous polls include deciding the game's logo design, the game's title screen, and the game's artstyle. It's very rare when any of these monthly polls relate to in-game lore, but those types of polls do occur from time to time. Occasionally, I make decisions that go against the poll results, but this is rare and only happens when I'm more convinced by the reasons people give me than the numbers.

Your Name in the Credits: I'd imagine this one isn't really that much of a benefit, it's just more of a "goody bag" type of thing. You came to the party for a big reason and you're given free benefits that you didn't really ask for but you also aren't going to decline. Your username will be put in the "About" section of the game. Here's what it looks like:

It's not really exciting, but I hope my patrons appreciate it anyways. Eventually, I'd like to display the names of my patrons in a cooler way that doesn't involve the player clicking on the boring "About" button, but I don't currently know how to code that so it will have to wait until later. I pick the patron's name based on their Patreon username. If you want a different name to be used in the credits, DM either on Discord or Patreon and tell me what name you want to be credited as. Assuming you're a patron of course.

Commentary of the first build: This used to be advertised on my Patreon but I removed the mention of it. Originally I had a Google Doc that I shared with my patrons that contained the commentary as I was writing it. This got really annoying because I kept having to add new people every time I got a new patron and I got paranoid that some people didn't have access to it. Now it's a PDF that's available in the same place you can download the latest builds. I thought it would be a cute idea to commentate on the entire first build since someone else was writing the script. This was a bad idea. It took me almost two and a half months to get this finished. That's why I'm keeping it as a commentary of just what the first build contains. If you want commentary on future story content, read further down to see if you're interested in that style of commentary. But commentating on an entire script is just exhausting and I won't be doing that type of commentary anymore. But patrons have access to the commentary of the entire first build, so please enjoy. Note that when I say the first build, I mean everything from the start of the game all the way to the point where there's the text shown that says "Catch A Tiger By Its ****".

Capturin' The Booty: This is another benefit that I don't have labeled on my Patreon. Capturin' The Booty is one of my lesser known works and my first experminatations with paid work outside of Patreon. The game is free to play, but doesn't include any sex scenes, whereas the paid version does. You can buy it for $2, but if you become a patron, you will recieve the uncensored version as a bonus. My original plan was that I would create more of these short $2 VNs that would be accessible to all my patrons, but then my schedule was filled up with By Your Hands, so don't expect more VNs like Capturin' The Booty.

Exclusive Discord channel: Even another benefit that's not labeled on my Patreon, it's an exclusive channel on my Discord server. It's not much, it's just a place where you can discuss stuff that's in the latest build. That's pretty much it.

Advanced Tie

Previews of Art WIPs on my Discord server: In my Discord server, which Patreon will automatically invite you to when you become a patron, you get exclusive access to a channel where you get to see my current WIP on any art I'm doing. This includes both the art assets I do for both of my VNs as well as the monthly pin-ups I do which I'll explain more about in just a second. I also post the WIP art on my Patreon every week or so for those who don't have a Discord, but you get updated more with the Discord channel so it's recommended that you join the server when you become a patron.

Access to alts of the pin-up: I did pin-ups of various characters from other works each month. The clothed version is available to the public while the naked and "messy" versions are only available to Advanced Tier and Blooming Tier patrons. Here's an example of what these look like:

It's been a while since I last did art like these, but becoming a patron grants you all the art I did in this fashion.

Access to the polls relating to the monthly pin-up: I give you a set of characters and all Advanced patrons get to vote on who gets to be the monthly pin-up guy. It will take about a week to see who wins and then I'll start to work on it. That should be explanatory enough.

Blooming Tier - $10

Access to test builds: All Blooming tier patrons get access to test builds. These aren't "official" builds. These builds haven't been tested, they usually don't include all the final art assets, they don't add any new music, and the text hasn't finished being edited. There's also no standard release date for these test builds. But if you really want to know what happens next in the story, you can play through these builds before the official release of the monthly build as these contain all the story content that the official build adds. I'd just recommend reading the official build as well, as that's how you're intended to read through the game, unfinished art and sound assets notwithstanding.

Access to miscellaneous assets relating to the game: What this means is that sometimes the game will receive custom-made music tracks or backgrounds made for the game. Basically, any assets that are not writing or art made by me. Blooming Tier patrons are able to view those assets as they're being made. Custom-made backgrounds probably won't be a thing in BYH for a while, but there is already music made specifically for the VN, so look forward to that.

Commentary on the game past the first build: This isn't the commentary for the first build, but rather commentary on everything past the first build. Essentially for every build, there will be a PDF included that does a quick commentary on that build. It will be more condensed as well as focus on more developmental stuff rather than making jokes and stuff like that. It will also have screenshots so it can be easier to read. Later commentary should happen somewhere after a week has passed since the build has been released. Click here to see what you can expect my commentary to look like.

Guide for the game: Although BYH currently doesn't have any endings, there still are some scenes that change dramatically depending on what choices you've made. Some CGs are locked behind these scenes. If you want exact instructions on how to get all these, you can download the guide you get from being a Blooming patron and get information on what every choice in the game does. There's a general guide, a simplified guide to get the best ending, a CG gallery guide, and an optional content guide.

And that's everything. I hope this was informative to you guys. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve my Patreon and what benefits I should be giving my patrons, please let it be known. I'll edit this devlog whenever I have new benefits or existing benefits have been changed to reflect my current Patreon more closely. Again you can become a patron here.

Have a good day and see you later!