Animations are on the list of future features 100%
If you support our Patreon for a single month you get the game 50% off basically. The Patreon 5$ gets you access to the game, but it's our hope that after playing it you'd want to stick around and support us.
If you buy on Itch / Steam / Gumroad you pay 10$ and have the game and every single update that comes out with it for life at no extra cost.
Making it free would only give it access to people that had no intention of supporting us in the first place in my opinion. We can't make the game free while it's in development because we can't afford the development costs without the support of our fans, however in the future once the game is completed there's an argument for it becoming free as a means of promoting other games in the series.