Have you thought about setting up a Patreon page? This can be a good way for people to support you and your games development going forward.
It can also be a good way to ask for opinions from your supporters on things in game that you may be torn about or to gauge interest in a certain thing. Like everything else it will take time to get going, but I think you may be surprised at how much Patreon support you may get after a year or so. I know that you've said before that money isn't your primary motivation but I think that many people would want to reward your hard work.
So I've mentioned this before but I initially planned to launch a patreon with the release of ch2. However, because it ended up taking over a year to make, I didn't feel justified in essentially asking for financial support when I couldn't promise any sort of consistent release schedule, or, really, promise anything in return. For instance, some devs will do custom requests or 4K images for whatever tier, which isn't something I'd do because it'd take away from the time I can spend making the renders for the actual game. Most devs seem to do a staggered release, with higher tiers getting the game earlier, which is also something I've no interest in. The updates are always going to be free, and I'm not fond of paywalling anything. The way I look at things is that once the update's ready, everyone can get it. This may be a backwards way of thinking, but giving people a finished update two weeks earlier for paying more doesn't feel like a reward; more so it feels like you're punishing those who pay less by making them wait, even though the update is completely ready. This is something I know I'm probably in the wrong on, but I digress. So I didn't exactly have much to offer people subscribing to a patreon.
That said, I'd still want to launch one in the future, currently looking at doing so with the release of ch3. But that'll still only be if I feel comfortable with the idea of people financially supporting the game.
Put simply, I guess, I don't feel like the work I've put in so far would justify people giving me money for it. One release after one year? Morally, that doesn't sit right with me. In a similar vein to why I didn't immediately start out with a patreon. I was someone who had no previous experience on another game or fan renders or anything like that throwing a first chapter out there. Why should I immediately ask people to support a patreon? It just doesn't seem justifiable to me.
It's a good point about being able to ask a community about things. I've done that here a couple of times and received feedback on how to proceed (the value of including animations, whether to spend time on making character screens etc.), so that community aspect of things is appealing. But also there's not a lot I'm really torn about with the game either, really. It's not like I'd be doing polls on future content or characters like I see some devs do. Because I know what's going to happen. I always find it weird when devs who say they're making a story-focused game poll their audience on things that seem directly linked to the story or character development. I feel like you should have all that shit mapped out long before even starting.
As you say, the patreon would probably be a slow starter anyway, particularly given people value consistent, timely releases above most else when supporting a dev, and I just can't guarantee that. But hopefully if ch3 gets done in a reasonable timeframe I'll launch a patreon then, and people can at least know what to expect because then they'd have multiple releases and dev cycles to gauge whether it's worth it or not. And then the patreon could build from there on a solid foundation of three good chapters (I hope).
I'm not trying to talk shit on devs who do or have done any of these things I've mentioned, it's worth saying. It's their business model, and if people want to give them money that's great, because it means more people will make more games. And, while some will be pretty bad and baffling as to how they make as much money as they do, plenty others will be legitimately great games that deserve the support so that the devs can see out their vision, whatever that may be.
(that ended up being a significantly longer reply than I thought it'd be. apologies. i have a bad habit of talking a lot/overexplaining in some of these replies)
