I have no clue why you
MasterXY consider 0.49 to be the last build.
In the links above that you, of all people, provided, 0.27EX was posted after 0.49 on 2022.02.16, while 0.49 was posted on 2021.02.23.
0.27EX was posted here, as the OP, on 2022.02.21, 5 days after the itch post, so if anything, you shouldn't have disconsidered my F95 reference as being "not the last time we got an update".
0.27EX introduced NEW stuff, as far as I can tell from scouring other demos / versions of the game. The shit in 0.27EX was fucking new lol.
How 0.27EX came after 0.49 is beyond me so I won't go into it...I guess...
I told you why I considered 0.49 to be the last new content we saw.
but I've been following this game for a long time (probably since early 2016 or late 2015) and I've played that electric demo more than a few times over the last many years so I don't really consider that 0.27EX to be new content because majority of it I played nearly half a decade ago
Before the 0.27EX update, the 0.27P update was considered the demo everyone should play and before the 0.27P update we had the 0.27F update I don't know if there were other versions before that, might of been but its too hard to search for more. Go look up some videos of it many still exist I went out of my way to find videos of both the 0.27P and the 0.27 release, you will notice, that 0.27 release was in fact, half a decade ago. Now I don't know what "scouring" you did, however here's some of the "scouring" I did.
Here's the 0.27P update from 2020 you will note that it does include the boss fight and all of the stuff in the demo and many of the cutscenes.
Here is the 0.27 update from 2018 you will note that it does include the boss fight, many of the same cutscenes, maps, and power ups and dialogue option stuff. Even back in 2018 all of these things existed. Such as talking with NPC's like the hacker bot at 23:10 and more.
So you may be asking, "what's different between 0.27P and 0.27EX", well lucky you I "scoured" this thread and found the 0.27EX patch notes, (and then later discovered you could just scrolldown from that linked blog post to see them, d'oh!) the tl;dr is some map changes, a couple new lore dump databases, more power ups (there were powerups in the game in earlier versions), tutorial has been moved, and some minor QoL. There is no mention of cutscenes added to this game (and based on the the videos I posted, those seem to have been added 3+ years ago) however I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say maybe a few cutscenes were added or changed since the 0.27P update, however they are not listed here.
Here's some of the changes it's got compared to the last Public Demo;
- All 50 powerups are in with the new effects.
- The powerup "RNG system" is in: there's 10 powerup boxes around the level, on each new game, the powerups assigned to those boxes will be semi random.
- Powerups are now easier to select/move through, as the layout for them was changed entirely on the menu / they're organized by type now.
- Color auras added to powerups to designate if they're offense, defense, utility, or negative.
- A small set of voicelines were added or changed to allow for new conversations in the demo.
- Vie now asks, upon getting to a Security Bot for the second time, if you want to re-hear the security bot tutorial.
- Talia no longer gets returned to the Hub Map after the end of any NSFW cutscenes.
- The opening tutorial has been removed, and replaced with two images you can access at any time by pressing F1 to learn about game mechanics.
- The opening cinematic now advances per the player's choice, instead of automatically. It also has revised text, is fully voice acted, and has new music loops.
- The opening cinematic also starts at the start of a game now, not before it, and you can press the Spacebar to skip it at any time.
- Enemy damage amounts have been adjusted.
- The new "stun system" is in place; now, when you take damage, you get between 1 to 5 "stun ticks"; hit 5 and you're stunned, regardless of damage.
- The controller system has been massively overhauled from the ground up both functionally and visually; all gamepads should work without issue now.
- 13 new databanks were added.
- All existing databanks were re-organized to fit the new databank windows, with re-cut audio.
- The credits screen was fixed to credit all the new voice actors / actresses involved in this demo.
- Music was lowered substantially during cutscenes/databanks so voicework can be heard better.
- At least 50+ bugs were fixed.
- The X button is now the default "action / yes" button for all things in the game, and Z is the default "decline / back" button.
- Most of the maps were reworked / redesigned to fix things or make things flow smoother.
- Particles now appear around Talia while she charges her shot.
- The new Ice Charge Shot is now fully implemented.
- Databanks are now collected in the Collections Menu, and can be re-read / listened to at any time.
- Zoom should now work properly for all electric level sex scenes/cutscenes.
- The "Memorial Room" for the Electric Level was added.
I don't care enough to debate the semantics of whether this is a patch or not but the majority of this update was polishing, and PATCHING bugs, or making minor adjustments to the game. I don't know what you consider to be """gigantic""" amount of changes, maybe you beat the game on keyboard, realized there was controller functionality and that sparked a light inside your soul that made your whole day better as a result. Maybe you'd consider those "50" new power ups to be new content (even though you can only obtain 10 per new game but whatever), however I am sorry to tell you that the majority of those existed in previous versions, such as the 0.27P update, and the 0.49 update I even downloaded the 0.49 update just to prove it as you can see from screenshot below and were brought to the 0.27EX. Maybe you'd consider minor changes to the map as new content, however go watch those videos maybe some map changes, but definitely not many.
...especially considering we know they're working on cutscenes, bugs and a few other things according to their progress reports. Just because you're not having the progress spoon-fed to you in daily releases doesn't mean it's not happening. We got a build in february last year and that's enough for now. Wtf do you expect them to release new builds every few months?? That would slow down their production by a ton.
The rest of the post is pretty...interesting as well, because you're also saying the problem was a lack of transparency...which is also very interesting.
I've not said that, but like all your other posts you don't actually read anything I post. So I'll restate myself once again.
The western hentai game dev patreon have a bad rep of milking patreon without actually producing any content. Now I'm not sure why you are arguing with me over "well ackchyually its been 1.5 years since a demo not 2.5, get wrecked hater" as if 1.5 years since a demo (that didn't add much) was a good thing. I'd like you to also keep in mind the time between the 0.49 update and the 0.27EX update was a full year, and in a full year that was all they had to show. And mind you, we can go even DEEPER into this argument if we wanted and argue the 0.49 update wasn't actually new content either, I think the end level got released in 0.44, however going any deeper into this argument would be stupid by this point and I'll elaborate more on that later because this is already getting long enough that if I make this paragraph any longer people will not read it.
You're all really just disconsidering what actually is going on (like believing 0.49 to be the last meaningful content / demo / update / whatever we got) and cherry-picking inconveniences to have something to base your hate for FF on.
All you've done is cherry pick my arguments to try and prove I'm some hater despite me saying multiple times I don't mind how much it gets delayed and based on the demos I've seen the game is easily worth the 10-20$ asking point. I'm just elaborating why people might have a problem with the dev. Release dates aren't the problem (for me at least), making multiple promises and not upholding them is because it does nothing to disprove people's notions that this is another dev milking their patreon.
Now that I'm done responding to your points let me make a few more clarifications on my position of things that didn't really fit into those other paragraphs well.
First off, game development and programming is an iterative process it goes through incremental changes as it's being worked on so stuff like 0.27 -> 27F -> 27P -> 27EX is considered normal and not a problem at all but that's not new content, thats just old content being patched and polished (again totally fine), I don't expect to receive brand spanking new content every month but 1.5-2.5 years since a demo after the game has been delayed multiple times is a bit much regardless of which year you think is the last time they released new content. If FF intends to keep the electric demo as their primary trial for the game they should probably commit to keep updating that if nothing else so people have visual confirmation progress is being made especially if you're trying to crowdfund with something like patreon, I don't think the current progress graphics are bad, but again western hentai game devs have bad rep for no progress being made and instead coming up with excuses or lies for why it's not happening, and while I do think FF is being worked on its hard to know to what extent when all we have is the word of someone who's broken previous promises and been deceptive (or at least felt deceptive) about their progress. I know there is value in holding some cards to your chest and not showing off whats being worked on in your game so it can be a surprise, but I imagine they plan to release a trial version of this game when it finishes anyway. If nothing else and I was in their shoes, I'd be preparing to release a demo/trial 2-4 weeks before the game launches to get hype going again and to show whats been worked on in the last 1.5-2.5 years.