Alright, first of all, I want to apologize. You were right, actually, on the Help Center forum being closed. It must've been closed accidentally, since none of the staff seems to be aware of it, but still, you were right. And I apologize. And I also thank you for bringing it to our attention! We'll be working on fixing it as soon as our programmer comes back from his job or is available in general.
As for the timeline or devlog-- we're new to Itch.io, as we created this page in order to participate in the bundle for racial justice two days ago, as you can see if you click "More Information" at the bottom of the posting. I personally wasn't aware of the feature, and I'm not sure if my team was either, though it is interesting and worth checking out. From what my team and I talked after receiving your feedback, we are open to doing it. The thing is that it consumes manpower that we honestly don't have. Most of our staff is quite overworked from real life, and that leaves a very small window of where we can or should put the energy we do have. But I will say it really isn't a bad feature to have and we're definitely considering it.
And, when it comes to delays on development and problems, that's what we use Discord for as well. We wouldn't and haven't used Itch.io simply because we haven't had Itch.io outside of participating in the bundle so far.
And regarding whether or not an Alpha is a proof of concept or not: (forgive the text in Portuguese, as that is my native language and what PC is set to)
The Alpha does also have gameplay features. It doesn't have all of them, though, and, yes, you're right, it is a very bare bones site as it is. I won't deny it. I don't want to excuse it, either. However, from what I can understand, and forgive me if I'm wrong, you seem to think that we're selling the game as a finished product, which is not what we are doing. We're selling the Human Avatar Set and the Critter. The key is intended as a free add-on so you can redeem your codes.
And, as for criticism being deflected with promises, I have no intention to deflect criticism, but I also can't show you content that isn't ready to be shown, and therefore I can only promise you we've been working on things behind the scenes. You also aren't addressing the critcism that I did reply to without promises, namely: the one where we are a dress-up game as well as a petsite, both points on the issue with the sudden wipe of new accounts, and whether or not the screenshots on this page are true or not.
It seems your biggest issue with our team is our lack of transparency, but I don't think I could've been more transparent outside of creating a devlog right then and there. I've explained our team's situation and why development is behind, and our intentions with the game. When it comes to our players knowing that we'll deliver, it's because we have, and will continue doing so. We have had contests, a Winter Event, Game Nights, and several handmade custom pets that were delivered properly and on time.
I have a question, too, actually: have you gone into our Discord? We talk very openly about what's going on, and try to answer all questions as much as we're able. We have very much been open about how development has been going. If you'd like to ask our userbase about our transparency, you're completely free to do so.
Even though our game is unfinished, we have done what we can to engage the community, and we want to do even more. I'm happy to hear you were excited about our game! And I assure you we're as communicative as we can, otherwise I wouldn't be here trying to respond to your concerns.