I'm writing this as a former 16 month 20$ backer who had high hopes for this game, but with like all the things released in 2020, it came crumbling down.
We were promised 6 months ago that chapter 3 will come out in December. Along the way, we got monthly updates with silhouettes of succubus and various promises that this chapter will have multiple branching and more succubi than ever.
Then the news for the Kain injury came. These things happen and can impact development of a product, especially when it's the only artist currently working on things. So when the "demo C3" announcement came out I figured "it's ok, at least we'll see the majority of the chapter since the release date was set for December so most of the work is already done, the most important thing will be the artist to recover". Boy I was wrong.
When I started the chapter and saw the initial cutscenes, I thought it started things well, picking up where it left off, but then, I got stuck in a bland labyrinth, with nothing to do than roam around and find the actual succubi. No interactions, one piece of lore, no enemies, nothing. Then I got to all the 5 promised enemies. I've got to say, Kain is improving in his art. I digged the design and the various angles of the girls. Still, some scenes were some of the best written until now, but there were two which were 90% copy pasted from last two chapters. After defeating three of them we got one cutscene for each, after which we were allowed to cross a certain river. I knew there were no more enemies but I expected at least a scene with the Queen, a cutscene or at least a text to say "This was all, DUMBFUCK". I guess the content was so rushed that Zion forgot to implement something at the end of the demo.
So finally to the verdict: I feel like this latest update doesn't justify 6 months of work. I understand that the whole "this is a demo" excuse stands up, but this doesn't even feel like a demo, it's more like a shell, an empty one. It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality. Even if this was halfway through, it would still be disappointing. For a game which promised a rich universe and diversity, the world feels empty. Even the fights were the same, the same 2 attacks and 1 succubus temptation pattern. At least in the previous chapters the enemies had a different pattern or move orders. I get that there's gonna be a combat overhaul but I'm just trying to find out where the development time has gone. Sadly, I couldn't.
In conclusion, even if the main artist got injured and development couldn't progress because of it, I still expected for this demo to at least have some interesting content like some interactable NPCs, side cutscenes, literally anything. I got into this game when seeing the developer's ambition and passion for this game, but there's 0 passion here. This demo is two weeks development worth of content at most and a passionate dev would have dedicated his time to implementing various other things (just like you did in the prologue, with a touch to detail, funny interactions and character development).
I don't know if you're burned out or just out of inspiration, but my hype for this game is done and so is my funding sadly. I think things might rebound in a couple of months but I'm not willing to bet on that. The development time is too large and even if I accepted that the quantity will be small (comparing to the amount of content other devs produce in 1 year's worth of time), I expected quality, passion and soul. For the last year, I found none.
TL;DR: this demo doesn't justify 6 months of wait and feels like a rushed empty shell just to put out anything, literally in the month of the release date.