There were no real progress since their main developer left the project. The new project leader admitted he only provided the money and wrote some dialog. You know He provided the money for a crowdfund project...
Truth is because the project was good it attracted volunteers but talents soon realize they can create their own crowd fund project and cut out the middle man. This Ukraine narrative may or may not be true. I saw crowdfund projects go bust and blame it on the summer heat. The last update was an engine rework and bugfix. It was named bugfix than it was renamed to final. You don't name your latest version final when you have plans to continue. You also don't name it bugfix because you can't loose the abandoned prefix like that. I was ready to apologize for my former skepticism but 1 year past again I don't see any reason for it.
That is one way of looking at the facts, I suppose.
I just happens that I have a more or less opposite interpretation of the same facts.
My version of what you wrote, striking out what I think is not correct and adding in blue my own thoughts:
There were no real progress since their main developer left the project. The
new project
leader owner (Dvegames) admitted he only provided the money and wrote some dialog.
(That may be factually not untrue but I believe he was the main driving force of this project for years, as well as I think providing the main idea as well as a lot of the historical background, which is what made this game great and really stand out. By stating "he only provided the money and some diagolue" I think you are really underestimating how difficult this was.) You know He provided the money for a crowdfund project... Truth is because the project
was good had a premise was quite unique that it attracted volunteers but
unfortunately it never got the financial support that was anywhere near sufficient to make it a viable project talents soon realize they can create their own crowd fund project and cut out the middle man (this is bullshit, because if it were true, where are these games???) . This Ukraine narrative may or may not be true. (I I saw crowdfund projects go bust and blame it on the summer heat. The last update was an engine rework and bugfix.
If we are being honest, the engine was the problem of this project from the start. This game wants to be a brothel management game AND a VN at the same time, but Renpy is great for VN's but not really for anything as complicated as this game. It was named bugfix than it was renamed to final. You don't name your latest version final when you have plans to continue. You also don't name it bugfix because you can't loose the abandoned prefix like that. I was ready to apologize for my former skepticism but 1 year past again I don't see any reason for it.
My own version:
Dvegames had an excellent game idea, which was worked out in a really ambitious manner. The game offered an uniquely historical perspective on sexual slavery in ancient Rome, which was supported by great original artwork as well as offering a complex brothel management simulation together with really interesting and compelling storylines. Unfortunately, due to wrong choice of engine he quickly got into problems. This project was plagued with bugs from the beginning because it wanted to do things that Renpy wasn't designed to do. Due to the controversial nature of the game he was not welcome on Patreon, which was more or less the only crowdfunding platform at that time (Subscribestar being not yet there), which caused him to have problems with gaining sufficient financial support. The war in Ukraine was the final straw for this project, which is now sadly abandoned. I assume that it has cost Dvegames a significant amount of his own money, and I feel sorry for him, although that is also part of being in business.
My hope would be that someone could remake this game as a pure VN, with some choices like "do you want to follow a light or dark path with slave X" but without the management part. If possible with similar original art but if not possible with Daz or any other rendering software. Or just remake the whole thing, including the management part, in a different engine. But I think the costs might still be prohibitive, even if a project like this could now use Subscribestar.
