The dev is alive, he posted an update on Patreon yesterday.
"Hello everyone I am very glad to see you all! I know that I've been missing for a while, unfortunately my computer broke down. I couldn't log into discord because all my passwords and access code were on the computer... now I realized that you can't store all passwords in one place. It took me a while to buy a new power supply, motherboard and processor. now I understand that it is necessary to install a non-destructive power source so that such situations would never happen... Now I'm trying to figure out where I stopped and remember what I was doing before the break... Thank you all for staying close and helping to make the game better and more interesting"