I can somewhat relate to the money aspect. It feels like things simply cost more now compared to what they did ten years ago. I make roughly double what I made ten years ago, but the price of things has gone up by closer to triple. I might be making more, but I am also spending far more in a relative sense for what was the same thing then and now. I can feel a level of desperation now that patreon rug pulled him, and I'd love to see more scams like this game get shut down as a result.
This was meant to be a small side project that has turned into at least six years worth of time being fundamentally wasted. Not even titles from big name developers take this long.
Let's do a small exercise. Fair warning, there is a bit of presumption going on here as well.
72 months at 5k per = $360k
Where the hell did all this money go? I am being conservative with my estimations, I think. Exponentially increase that number by the magnitude of people being blatantly ripped off month over month past the 5k estimation and you get into the millions of dollars range really quickly.