The Steam demo is coming, and let's talk about June 25

Hey everyone!

OK, deep breath. It's actually happening.

TL;DR for the skimmers among you 👇

• Steam demo (S1-S3, you know what that means) drops Tuesday, May 19. Wishlist now

  🙏

• Full game launches end of June (currently in Valve review)

• The Steam version is fully translated and has a polished UI (different from the dev one)

• How to get a free Steam key as a supporter: same rule for every tier

• A second game is quietly brewing 👀

• (and a sappy heartfelt rant in the middle, sorry not sorry)

🚀 The Steam demo — going live Tuesday, May 19

After all these months of prep, audits, QA, and Valve back-and-forth on the demo… we're finally about to be out in the wild.

I'm pushing the demo live on Tuesday, May 19. The store page is already up, the wishlist button is already there, and every wishlist we collect between now and Next Fest (June 15-22) genuinely matters. Steam's algorithm runs on them.

If you can spare 30 seconds to share the demo link with a friend, a Discord server, anywhere people who'd enjoy a gay VN might hang out, it helps more than you'd think. Wishlist, share, scream into the void. I'll take all of it.

Full game launch in June

The full version has just been submitted to Valve for review. Fingers tightly crossed for a smooth approval 🤞. Assuming all goes well, launch day is locked for Thursday, June 25, the day the Steam Summer Sale kicks off.

What the Steam version brings (besides the price tag)

A few things I'm genuinely proud of, and one I'm a bit nervous about.

• Full localization. French, Spanish (Latin America and Spain), and Brazilian Portuguese. Months of work.

• Polished UI. The Steam version has a reworked interface with a bunch of small visual improvements. Cleaner gallery, redesigned screens, that kind of stuff.

• The translations, real talk. I used the best tools I could find and got help from amazing community members for some of the languages, but I don't speak all of these fluently. Some lines are stiff. Some jokes landed flat. Some idioms went literal when they really shouldn't have. If you play in your native language and something feels weird, come tell me on Discord. There'll be a dedicated channel for that exact thing, and it's the kind of feedback I can act on fast.

💛 Please read this part before I tell you about the Steam keys

I know some of you skim posts (no judgement, I do it too lol), but I really need this part to land before we get to the practical stuff.

This game is now my only job. Not a side thing, not a passion project I work on after work (what I used to do, if you remember). Now it's the job. I open my tools in the morning, I write, I render, I lose sleep over a typo on line 286, and I do it again the next day. And the only reason that life is even possible, the only reason I can pay rent, buy actual food, and keep building this story, is you. Every single one of you.

Every pledge. Every comment. Every bug report. Every "I cried there" message. Every Discord react. Every "I'll stay one more month". It all stacked up into a life I genuinely didn't think I could have. I get to wake up every day and make stories about boys figuring themselves out, for a living. Because of you.

So when I say thank you, I don't mean it in a marketing-newsletter way. I mean it in the literal way. You feed me. You let me build this. You are why this exists.

The Steam keys I'm about to talk about? They're a tiny gesture compared to what you've given me. But it's what I have to give, so I want to give them carefully and fairly.

Steam keys for Patreon supporters, the fair way

Here's what I landed on after weeks of turning this over in my head. To make it fair to everyone (fair to the people who've been here for many months at a smaller tier, fair to those who joined later at a higher tier, fair to me too), the rule is:

You get a free Steam key for the full game if, by June 25, you've cumulatively pledged at least €15 on Patreon over time, and you still have an active subscription on launch day.

That's it. A long-time Junior who's been around for a while counts. A newer Vanguard counts. Same rule for everyone, no exceptions, no hidden tiers. What matters is the trust and the time you've put into this project.

The process:

• A few days before launch, I'll post a Google Form here on Patreon (tier-locked)

• You give me your Patreon username and your email (the one tied to your Patreon account), that's it

• I cross-check eligibility manually with my Patreon data

• Your key arrives by email around launch day

A little manual, a little old-school, but I'd rather take a few evenings to do this carefully myself than let automation mess things up.

And to be very clear: Patreon stays the heart of all this

The Steam release doesn't change how we work here. Patreon is still where the game actually lives — where Peter's route, Tim's route, and all the new content show up first, scene by scene. Steam is just the wider door for new players to find their way in.

And honest about it: Steam isn't going to "blow up the numbers". The day-to-day livelihood of this game runs on Patreon, on what we've built here together. Long may it continue.

Quick note for itch.io

The itch page has been reorganized for the launch. Here's the timeline:

• The new free demo is available on Windows, Mac, and Android.

• May 19: Steam demo goes live, and Mac and Android full versions launch on itch (these platforms are not available on Steam at this stage, so they will get an early release on itch).

• June 25: Windows and Linux full versions launch on Steam and itch the same day, same price.

Something else is brewing

Confession while I'm in oversharing mode: I've been quietly building a second game in parallel.

Very different vibe.

Gay thriller. Paris. NSFW. A murder. A phone you weren't supposed to find. The killer is randomized every playthrough.

That's all you get for now 😏

The first teasers are coming right here, same Patreon page, no extra cost. That's exactly the point of supporting Takato Games rather than a specific title. More very soon.

That's the post. Wishlist, share the demo, come hang on Discord, and I'll see you very soon for the launch.

One small thing before you scroll away: what language are you planning to play the Steam version in? Drop it in the comments, I'm genuinely curious to see how the split lands.

-- Erwin