I actually do believe he is and has been working on this the entire time between now and the last update, he just has a terrible workflow.
I assume it goes something like this
- He makes a scene
- He isn't happy with the scene, so he redoes it, perhaps even more than once.
- Repeat that a number of times.
- He then decides to add more stuff when he thinks of it, despite not planning for it.
- Since he adds stuff he didn't plan on, he has to revise the previous stuff more so it makes sense.
and that basically goes around and around until he is finally satisfied with it, which causes the update to take forever because he is constantly revising things as he goes. It's basically 2 steps forward, and 1 step back, which slows things down a lot. It's not going to be 9 months worth of content, it'll probably be the equivalent of 3-4 months if my assumption is right.
5-6months might b the case (since the 4months is for larger content; normal ones are 2 months)
I think the issue here is that he is using the wrong marketing/packaging attempt to present his work/project.
If a good marketing person is here,
he would have just publish the game already at whatsoever content he had made at 4months due date ,
then constantly review/add in/bugfix small stuffs on the following 5 months, which will present/pretend himself as a hardworking dev,
but the actual added stuffs is equivalent to the original 2months content (as we assumed a 6month content here)
But the "show" is a "positive" presentation.
Then how Irph did was doing all the contents + reviewing + bugfix at the same time (9months),
but did not show how his progress "transparently",
then he is presented/assumed as a lazy dev.
(and his poor time estimation and constant extra content add-in make the thing worse)
Anyway, all will depends on the release, if it is worth the wait.