To answer your questions:
Yes, but only partially. Episode 3 is in development and the alpha version is playable on my Patreon.
Because the alpha build and the public build share meta data, if you have a public build save you can load it directly into the alpha build and pick up where you left off. You will not need to replay from the beginning (with one exception - saves from June 24, 2023 and before will have errors).
Episode 3 is incomplete and not all routes are playable at this time. Currently, the alpha build only contains content for the following variations:
- Aeran's romance reconciliation
- Aeran's friendship reconciliation
- Breaking off your friendship/romance with Aeran at the apartment
- Aeran's low romance (if you do not go to Melchior's party and return to the apartment)
- Sleeping with Veyer
All other Episode 2 endings (Melchior, Kit, drunk route, etc) will lead to an Under Construction page.
There is approximately 480,000 total words in the Episode 3 alpha build (individual playthrough count is unknown as I won't be calculating that until the whole episode is finished).
2) If it is, is it only playable on your Patreon?
Yes! The alpha build is only playable through my Patreon.
3) Which Patreon subscription allows you to play the game?
The Recruit tier. This also gives you access to full sneak peeks of WIP content and the Wayfarer Patreon discord server.
If you're interested in other Wayfarer bonus content (such as the short stories), those come with the next tier up, Apprentice.
4) If it does happen, when would it be fully released to the public? Would it be downloadable?
Wayfarer Episode 3 will not be released on the public build until the Episode 4 alpha is finished.
At this time I am still working on Episode 3, so it will still be a long wait. My goal has always been to get the alpha build to a state where it is always one full episode ahead of the public build; unfortunately Episode 3 is a beast of an episode, which is why the public build hasn't had an update in a couple years and it may be another one before it is updated.
I am not releasing a downloadable version of the game until it is finished. Keeping it online only during the development process makes patching and updates much, much easier on my end.
If you want to play offline, then I'd suggest downloading the game with the itch.io desktop app. However, fair warning - the app does not always play nice with HTML games and you may run into some save and display issues.