Fair enough, that was a bit too much, and I'm sorry.
I overreacted, so it's for the best you deleted that comment.
But you really should share the news about the upcoming sprites rework with itch/twitter/bsky users yourself.
It's big news and it worries me you are not only keeping it secret to anyone outside patreon, but are also ignoring any criticism even patreon subscribers are giving.
I apologize for being rude in my original comment, but it was passion for your project that commanded my actions. I am very concerned that the original sprites are being treated with such disregard for what made them good.
Yes, the old sprites aren't perfect, but they have their charm and they have been the official look of the characters we all grew to love. People love these characters the way they are, warts and all. You can't just discard their old looks and expect everyone to get on board with such drastic changes in design.
I don't believe there's malice in your actions, I know how game development, in its messy process, often makes things fall in place just perfectly to make for a disaster.
But you need to be more open about this and keep the community more involved in the process of this change. You own the game, but you don't own the community, however there's no reason for us to antagonize each other. We can work together to make this change a true upgrade everyone will be happy about.
I understand you are a small team and your resources are not endless to keep remaking things, but I hope you can see this is a big change and it really needs more attention than this fire-and-forget approach.
Please don't be a stranger to your own fans.