I was curious about the release dates so I looked through the Patreon. There aren't too many posts and the titles are easy to follow.
Chapter 1: Not sure about the exact date, but it was prior to July 4 2021. A lot of communication, daily or near daily posts, sometimes multiple posts a day.
Chapter 2: October 12 2021 so about 3 months or so. Again great communication.
Chapter 3: Jan 28, 2022 about 3.5 months. Still great communication and interaction.
-update patch: April 1 2022 about 2 months, various fixes, proofreading, mechanics etc.
Chapter 4: June 30 2022 about a 6 month cycle, and roughly 3 months after the update. There was constant communication, deadlines and previews provided and followed up on.
Chapter 5: October 28 2022 a short 4 month cycle. Of note is again constant communication, and a Discord server is now setup. Previews provided, deadlines hit.
Chapter 6: May 19 2023 about a 6.5 month release, so longer. Communication began to stall on the patreon, what was once daily posts became monthly or further apart. Still previews were provided, but this is where deadlines really began to be misjudged, and where communication would just stop. Perhaps the Discord was getting the updates? I never joined it so I don't know.
-midterm update: Sep 13 2023 about 4 months which is more a chapter update cycle, however communication picks back up about 2 or so months before this release. This adds animations, fixes some things etc. Work is also being done on the Steam release which is about a month or two after this.
Chapter 7: Communication starts slipping to monthly or greater again. Announcement of the partial idea on January 31st 2023.
-Part 1: February 2, 2024 about 7.5 months after the last chapter release, if you count the midterm update about 4.5. But I thought this update was extremely short. Next part is supposed to be out within a month or so.
-Part 2: Obviously not released yet, and this is also where communication stops. Health issues could be a cause and of course with the previous track record, very understandable and excusable. Deadlines get missed pretty badly. Current time between updates would be about 3 months from the partial, which puts it to around a full year since the last full chapter release.
Now the above I made as factual as possible and my intent is for it to be neutral. My key takeaway: communication. The update cycles did increase but the communication dropping lowered engagement. Now I don't really use the Patreon, and maybe it's in the discord, but I also remember seeing Mr.SL more active in here previously. I'll say maybe health issues or other hopefully temporary things came into play. If communication gets restored I have a feeling everyone will be happier for it. And there's still hope the update cycle can drop down again. Looking at the averages I'd say it's usually no more than 4 months with something dropping, but content drops really do need to be within 6 months at the upper end.
Anyway we should probably be really close, I doubt it will be more than a week max.