Hi, thank you for your kind words! The game will be a one time payment of 9.99 during launch week, no subscription on Patreon required! It is me working on the game as a solo dev (with the help of some awesome translators for the other languages).
The reason for including the mini-game was just because I wanted to try it to be honest, offer something a little different than just the pure story content. I understand it's not for everyone hence why I did make it fully optional. Implementing that mini-game took less than 1% of the time that I spent on the story parts of the game, so don't worry about there being a lot less story content because of the inclusion of the mini-game.
Hope that answers any concerns! Appreciate you sharing your thoughts!