I think it's more an issue of sunk cost, avoidant mentality, and either hopefulness or self delusion, depending on how charitable you want to be.
I suspect the dev of this game (and other games in similar states) had high hopes for it initially. Clearly he put a ton of work into it. At some point, his hopes and/or enthusiasm for the game dimmed, or real life got in the way, or *something*.
In any case, he can't bring himself to work on it, but he also can't bring himself to totally give up on it.
So now it's a zombie game, where it's being "worked on", but the dev can't find the time, motivation or energy to actually put in the hours he needs to in order to meet expectations (including his own expectations).
Honestly, I'm pretty sympathetic to all of this. None of it excuses the long, unannounced absences with the Patreon still taking money, or the dev's other behavior. I can understand how a dev might fall into this rut, and it sucks, but at this point I've given up on it.
I'd be *more hopeful* if the dev could be honest enough to himself to put the game properly on hold, since then he might be able to recharge or get things otherwise sorted, and come back to it with the energy he needs. But right now, it's an albatross around his neck.
I expect at some point it will get too much to bear, and the dev will disappear from the internet. Either that, or he'll gather enough awareness about what's going on to push out one final burst of effort, and we'll get a final update or two that fastforward to the conclusion.
