Saddog at least has one completed game under his belt.
Unfortunately this one was way too ambitious a project to tackle on his own without having had more experience under his belt. I think he should have done another game of similar size to his previous one (My Legacy) and avoided the "sandbox" gameplay too.
I would have to agree, his first game was more simple with basic choices/outcomes and less sandbox.
For this one he increased art quality and tried to do a more free flow/sandbox game. Unfortunately his coding skills probably needed something between sandbox and his last game so he could test things, esp with the extra time the renders for the game and patrons rewards.
As any coder/project team member can tell you things that seem simple are often not and deadlines are broken as often as kept, that is the nature of building anything esp if you are learning as you go.
Yes he could work on Communication, however once depression hits, just getting out of bed is a mission and talking to people is the last thing depressed people want to do.
As to missing deadline
I can name fully professional game studios that release things, late, bug filled, or are always beta and people still paid for them.
Saddog take your time and release something when you can.