Nah, everything you makes sense. Plus the covid thing. He's a real trooper for bouncing back so quickly from it. I agree that the Interlude probably was something to help reorganize things and give a potential out. It's just at the end of the day, looking at the cold, hard facts it'll probably be over a year or close to one since ep 8 and most people don't care enough to keep these things in their minds. I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if overall popularity took a hit. I'm not saying it's definitely going to happen or even if it does happen that it will be a huge hit. Probably, just that it wouldn't be good long-term if it did end up as 1 update per year.
Still, I'm definitely going to try sticking around until the end. It's the attention to detail he puts in each update (for example: In one free roam, if you call Derek while in his room with him he says "Dude, why are you calling me? I'm right here." which I thought was funny and also amazing how he put that much effort into the little things) AND his devotion to make this game compelling while still keeping the story coherent that keeps me coming back.
I mean seriously, have you seen how other games just deteriorate over time and just end up making no sense? This guy feels like an actual profressional (which he technically is since he does this for a living) which is also why I just straight-up "buy" the game every time instead of downloading it from here. Can't justify monthly donations but I think a sort of transaction is fair enough.
But I digress, once things start to getting this complicated in terms of branching paths and story most devs just crumble and ghost everyone while still collecting that sweet Patreon dough. Not only does he give weekly updates, he is still going strong (my opinion).
Not trying to kiss ass but you have to admit, this game is rare in a lot of aspects: a lot of content already, weekly communication, consistent (albeit long development time) game updates that aren't just 10 minutes of random crap, story still makes sense and garners interest, ACTUAL PROOFREADING (I'm so damn pedantic about grammar and spelling), dialogue that seems realistic and not something some 18-year old would think up, renders and characters that get people invested, etc. Usually other good ones have some of those aspects but end up just crapping out in the long-term. This will most likely end up being the only game that will deliver on this level unless he continues after this ends. I mean just looking at his old game, Acting Lessons (which is comparable to other good games) can tell you how night and day BADIK is from everything else and how much he's advanced as a creator.
Didn't mean to spaz out and write an essay but I just thought it was crazy that someone is actually managing all of this compared to most of the crap I've seen.