There is no point in arguing that updates take too much time. If you look carefully, you realize there are like three people who constantly defend developers. I noticed that updates take too much time several months ago, and the people who defended devs are the same who defend them now. They are either super fans or somehow connected to the team - either way, they will defend the developers no matter how absurdly long the development time becomes. The simple fact is that this update already took more than a year, and it is not close to completion. Who cares how much the developers make after paying taxes, what excuses they give you - the update time is not ok. This comment section is becoming toxic wasteland - people come and complain about long wait, and three white knights defend the honor of devs and will defend them if updates take another two years to complete. My prediction - the update will come out this year and abandoned afterwards, while people slowly realize that a year and a half of waiting for two hours of content was not worth it. Such a shame as well, the art is gorgeous and the idea is nice, but I just can't see how such an ambitious project with devs refusing to hire more people - whether because of greed or artistic vision - can be complete.
I am not a white knight (although I have to say I liked this part haha) nor do I know the developers personally, but I have been on their Discord channel for 2 years now and I think you are really wrong.
I have been browsing on F95 for 2 years now. It's not a long time, but I think it's enough time to get to know the fauna that moves around here. There are developers of absolutely all shapes and colors: Lazy, inspired, hard working, ghosts, people who take developing as a hobby and even entrepreneurs.
MagicNuts has made mistakes. They are 2 people working on something they have never done before and have left their job to do something that inspires them. And yet, they have worked practically every day on the game even if they have been sick or taking care of their children (you can easily check it in their progress tracks), and working better or worse, at least they are honest with what they are doing.
The game is free, as CountMorado would say in Sts, and you don't need to pay for the game with your patience.
Will the game be abandoned? Probably not. There are many people who love and support this game, although we know they need help. This is not the first and will not be the last Discord discussion about hiring someone. But even if it comes out only one update a year (also unlikely because it's not the same situation anymore), it will still be better to support people who are transparent with what they are doing and bring games that are really worthwhile.
There have been many people here who have profited by making good games and then disappeared. MagicNuts could have done it a long time ago, but they have always been honest and have come forward if people have asked them.
Darkcookie has also been brave, and I'm sure that's why people continue to support him despite the waiting time. But the clear difference between these two is that the first one has always published EVERYTHING that happened around the project day after day. No lies.
So why the merciless criticism? There are very few developers who act as good as MagicNuts. We should take care of people who work and do things honestly even if they make mistakes. We all make mistakes.