See post #241. I don't visit skunkgirl.moe, arca.live or EH forums but Aero clearly stated he would not be able to update his Patreon for a while. (And if there are no news on his blog either - don't know, haven't checked - then there's nothing new. Aero is alive either way and so is 13o.)
"The test play ends here!" is in every single version from the very first one since the Lost Treasures revamp, it's just Aero's way of telling you "you aren't supposed to go any further at the moment". There are placeholders if you're curious, but they don't do anything. You can also find them directly in your game folder, like for every RPG Maker game (just much easier with MV/MZ).