No one has said or implied it is easy, no shit. However it would be ignorant to deny that this looks like a red flag with the history of games that have done the same thing. Revamping the game and upgrading it is all fine and well, but given the length of time and only the prologue was touched is disappointing and will rub people the wrong way. We all get and understand how real life works, we know things can be tough, but you devs signed up for that (outside of any family issues or tragedies), and we the players have the right and justification to voice our grievances when the game is done poorly, or there's issues with the game, or anything else revolving the game
No, what I'm talking about is not what you're referring to. First lets dispel the notion that any thing is owed to anyone. So the Dev's don't owe you anything to start and certainly no grievances. Okay. Now that that has been established, we can start.
I would agree with you if this game was already established or if this game on it's first update gained like 200 supporters from thin air, then went on life support. However, this is the way I see it:
1. Dev made one update almost a year ago
2. People came in with criticisms
3. Maybe got discouraged/had a lot of things in the way/got into an accident, etc
4. Didn't come back to deal with those thigns.
5. Touches game a few times across the year until finally finishing the script.
6. Dev thinks "alrigh! I finally got this thing that is totally my hobby and I hope people will like what i have to offer"
7. They release and people give them for treating a hobby like a hobby.
That's my theory, and I don't know if it happened, but I'm guessing more than likely it did.
Now let me give you my perspective. I am currently in the middle of finishing an update for my and my partner's game. Throughout the partnership we've had spotty communication since we live around 10 hours away from each other. There's also univerisity stuff that gets in the way and other prior commitments. Last year was a shitty year where I had family members getting sick and my grandpa's sickness took a toll on me. I didn't want to write for weeks after all of that junk.
Fast forward to this year and he gets really sick this month and dies. Now, imagine me, I have this update to finish and real life happens. Should I just ignore this horrendous pain I feel and move on? Or do I embrace that I'm human and focus on myself. Well, I decided to work on myself.
Now, maybe that didn't happen to the Dev. Maybe they were taking those $10-20 a month and using it to buy Frozen Yogurts with reckless abandon. Maybe they laughed in the face of all the 1-4 people supporting him like some cartoon villain... OR maybe it's more realistic to say, nothing of the sort happened and life happened.
Now that the personal stuff is out of the way, let me just say ONE more time my thoughts on how the Dev MIGHT have thought about this.
DEV probably: "Alright, I haven't done a lot of extra renders, but I've now rewritten the story, I hope people can appreciate the work I've done. It's still something."
And that's the fallacy. People on here complain about time from each update, when they should focus on the update, especially when it's still their first release. If the Dev has 4 or 5 updates and disappears for a year, then yes, that's not good. But a prologue? I'd recommend everyone save their breath and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Let me quickly talk about this you said:
but you devs signed up for that (outside of any family issues or tragedies), and we the players have the right and justification to voice our grievances when the game is done poorly, or there's issues with the game, or anything else revolving the game
I agree that as players people can critique something. That's true. But within reason. If you start talking about how fat a dev's mom is, that's just not cool. I'll file people talking about an arbitrary line of time the same thing. Again, if it had been 3 or 4 updates and they ghost us, that makes more sense. But the story had barely been established. There has been very little time for people to grow attached.
By the way, I'm not defending this person as a DEV, but as a HUMAN. Give them a break.