Just a thought for you guys... have you looked in to Patreon there are loads of game designers on there that are making money hand over fist. The thing with it is though its a smaller amount of money per month then one big payout like Kickstarter.
You could maybe run a schedule like:
Once a monthly updates
- Leave version 21 free (call it like a demo)
- $2 a month Pledge person gets the latest version
- $5 a month Maybe a special way of writing the codes
- $10 a month .... You know whatever.
- $20 a month Name a folk after them
Later on get the game like to say version 26 and release the "Demo" again version 22. This way if someone truly supports the game and want the newest version they pay a couple of bucks a month (not a lot a lot of people can not really afford more then a couple of dollars a month)
Either which way, I love the game I have been teaching my niece some critical thinking skills with the game. Personally I started playing at version 2 and have been pretty surprised at your breakneck pace of releases. You deserve a break and definitely deserve slowing down some you have the core of the game now work some on the quality not the quantity?
If I could put in for one little request though... a randomly generated map! This map is sorta boring as I know exactly where to go to get all the resources needed, there is no need to explore the map other then to find/add more whiners... errm i mean The Folk!
Enjoy the break, happy holidays
Hope to see ya'll very soon