Now that's interesting... Didn't used to be the case, based solely on people's experience with $1 patronage working just fine.
I wonder if it's meant to work as a filter for what content you can access, or
when you can actually play at all and simply wasn't/doesn't work as intended.
I wouldn't have a problem if it functioned as a time-gate for current/newest content, but the fact that it prevents playing at all if you don't have a linked and paying patreon account (aka subscribe to play) is a big "pirate the shit out of his work" for me.
It's worse than when it was introduced in The Twist, since you could still play but not save/load beyond autosaves without a cracked copy... Yes, that's still the case too.