While what you say is true, its also true that when you're doing the initial plan for something like this then you have to realize that most people want it to actually be finished in their life-time.
Once the releases get down to 1 update per year its either not going to get finished or 4 years in the dev will half-arse the rest of it just to call it done.
yeah and if you make a game with branches... dont fuck it up with unneccessary stuff and pile up even more... until chapter 8 there wasnt that much branches, three girls in a house, one of them was the ONLY really Love interest... nothing too complicated and really well done with the thiongs happening there and between the charakters... but than chapter 8 comes up, and everything goes wild. So many different ways now where this can go... and iam pretty sure, Az didnt make a complete storyboard for what he is planning until the end of the game... just getting ideas, go with the flow, and realized "oh, i have a lot of stuff to do to pull this one off" to late now to go back a few steps. But he realized that thing are growing over his head, so to keep everything alive, he decided to waste time on "bonus content" or how it was called... uff
So we are at one update a year for now (even longer, cause ep 9 is cleary not coming before summer)... but lets be really honest here. compared to some other devs and games, the amount of content in chapter 8 wasnt THAT big. Most devs and games got that amount of content in 3-4 months done in equal quality.
Last dev-news about Halfway House was that the actual content for EP9 is now slightly bigger than EP8... but at that point 10 months were gone. So 10 months for an episode as big as the last chapter, that is really not something to make me optimistic for the future of the game, AND Az did tell about two years ago that he is working fulltime at the game... come on, thats not realistic with so little progress. I would say, its flat out a lie.
I WAS a pledge at patreon once (before chapter 8), will never be one again for Az, cause i just lost any trust in him. His dev upgrades are nearly not existent, i dont believe him when he says he is working fulltime on this, cause my experience tell me, that cant be true compared to what others do in the same time, and solo too...
The quality of the game is not a single doubt one of the best around here... maybe top 5, depend on the taste and if one main love interest is enough for you, for me it is, emily is great, so yeah for me this game is in the top 5.
But i cant see any scenario where this game will get an statisfying ending in a acceptable amount of time, at this state i would say... an acceptable amount of time would be another 3 years. Will not happen, at this pace it will rather be 10 years. But even more likeley, it will be abondoned, or Az will just keep the project alive like he did the last year with stuff related to the game... like wallpapers, extra "scenes" and so on... i just cant believe anymore that he will ever really get the game on a way to a statisfying ending.
I really hope he can make me wrong, dont think so.
By the way, i avoid the "milking" phrase, cause Az stopped payment for some time... so i wouldnt say that he is really "milking" his patreons like many others do... but in my opinion, he is not working enough on the game either to justify the amount of money he gets for now, and to call it a "fulltime job"
i might be harsh here and there, but thats how i feel about the project. Overall, mostly iam just upset cause another really good game with even more potential will not going anywhere, cause the DEV just misjudged how much work it will be if the game gets bigger and bigger... without a good plan, storyboard and a structure from the beginning til the end, this will happen... happened alot around here, but mostly i dont care... but if it happens to such a good game, it really really is something that upsets me, especially if i had faith in the DEV once and supported him.
