Am I surprised about this game being abandoned? not in the slightest. It rarely works, where there is a male and female protagonist. That is a lot of work that needs doing. A first time developer doesn't stand a chance. They should have gone with something much easier, like either a male or female, not both. It is really sad to see such games get abandoned especially since it had such potential at the start, but it rarely ever works with male and female protags like I said, it just creates extra pointless work, and if they are working on their own, doubly so. Even worse many of the games that where 3/4 through with development that either I patroned or subscribe star to, have all got abandoned in the last 18 months.
It's sadly a mine field of abandoned games out there. Sometimes devs milk the money on patron then do a runner, and game becomes abandoned or they change their name, and attempt to make another new game, make money, quit and do it all over again under yet another name, that's the mine field we are playing on here.
It's so hard to trust developers to finish their games when being financially supported, some like I said will just run with the money at some point and you won't hear another thing from them.
In this case, as been stated, he bit off more than he could eat or chew, it just got far too much for him or her. Maybe they will come back, but I doubt it, it would require some major changes to make the game easier to develop for, something if I was a developer I wouldn't want to do for a variety of reasons. The work is tedious and long, and then I would have to explain to my backers that I have to redevelop the game because it went into a direction I couldn't control on my own, the only way forward is to redevelop...and probably loose 99% of all my patrons or subscribe star subscribers in the process. It really is a shame, because it had a lot of potential..with just one protag not two.