A couple of hours... for testing code properly... LMAO... only someone who has never programmed anything would say this. It is not only HIM testing, but I would imagine he may have testers doing it. It's what I would want to be certain things I never thought of is caught.
But if you don't like it... don't pay him. Make your own visual novel and see just how much work it is. Your attitudes may change at that point.
This is Ren'Py we are talking about. If you are so great at programming, you would know that it isn't the same checking a tiny Ren'py update compared to an actual game with actual gameplay
Ren'py is after all (among other things) famous for people without ANY programming experience being able to simply start to create a visual novel.
Yes, AWAM is a complicated VN, for the many routes that need to be factored in, but the dev keeps it completely manageable by the tiny incremental updates. He basically adds one or two scenes on a specific route per update, that doesn't take so long to check.
And please don't trot out that stupid, inane line of "make your own game, instead of complaining," it just makes everything seem so ridiculous whenever people bring that up.
You don't need to make your own thing, to criticize a thing, by that logic no one could criticize anything he hasn't done before, it's moronic, it's like the absolute straw man argumentation, since there is literally NO connection to the matter at hand, it's just a stupid standard defence whenever criticism comes up that a person doesn't like.
I don't have a problem with the dev, I don't pay him and there are many other games to play, so I just wait until I get content in my route, even though it takes eons, but there are totally valid criticisms for the way he works and the amount of work he does in such a lengthy amount of time, so just grow up, please. You can like something and still accept that there is a problem with it.