I dont understand why the devs are not putting more work into this game, it has a unique artstyle with slightly interesting gameplay which seems to be enough for ppl to loyally overfund the game with a steady cashflow for years now. They must be making alot more or the same as alot of popular indie games or something considering how much time has gone by. Seems so unreasonable for them not to take advantage of the support they are constantly getting and just make a proper game. It cant be that hard can it?
From a speculative viewpoint there are many reasons. Things we know:
* The game has barely moved anywhere since the first release in 2016.
* They have been using shady tactics, asking their followers to dismiss any criticism of the game on various platforms (they even made templates for them to use).
* The previous game with many of the same people in the "lead", had many of the same problems (but there was some actual development—albeit minimal).
We can take the "positive hat" on and think their original effort was in earnest. They went way over their heads, as they made more and more promises in order to garner funds. Promises that they are trying to fulfill without having the skill. The bug fixing shit show that has gone on for years,
could be an indication.
I, however, don't buy that perspective at all. There's simply no transparency. There's also not only a lack of consideration for the promises they made. They are outright seeking to quench the criticism without doing anything about the problems. There's also a complete lack of effort after their initial releases—as it is with most of these types of scams on fund raisers.
Spending 40–50 hours a week on a game for a marginal increase in funds... or spending 1–2 hours a week (max) for around the same amount. I don't know how their profits are shared. Let's say they each, roughly get around 3k each month. That's a hefty sum for barely any effort. They are in no way incentivized to change their model. Even if the project is finally killed by a lack of funds. They'll still laugh their assess off going to the bank with all the extra funds. They got from deceiving their gullible victims. There's no decency here, so I doubt, they have any sense of shame.
The problem is not them per se. It's their patrons not holding them accountable for their (lack of) work.