Honestly, some people really care about the bonus episodes, or is it just me ? Wouldn't you guys rather see the main story progress?
I mean of course people care about bonus episodes, more content of their husbands.
Joking aside, the episodes show the backstory and perspectives for each of the main cast in their respective routes. I think it would ruin the pacing of the game if the main story was full of incredibly long flashbacks for each of the love interests, that and there's clearly something happening for day 14, so there's no time to fit all the side stuff in the main story since as of now there's like 5 days left for shit to hit the fan
The problem is that time passes, there are months of waiting between the different updates. Instead as the story progresses, we have flashbacks that we shouldn't normally see because after all in the game we play Walter who knows nothing (forget?) about the past of his "friends", and to see their flashback without walter, for me it's a spoiler, the bonus episodes should normally be made available only at the end of the game. At this rate, the games will never be over, After Class has been on Itch.io for 5 years and not a single road has finished... I'm not saying this to be mean, but given the problems that Andy is starting to accumulate I'm afraid that one day or another the games will be canceled or on hiatus...
"we have flashbacks we shouldn't normally see"
I think thats the point of the episodes; to fill in context we wouldn't see in the main story. There /is/ a reason why they're separate from the main story, away from focusing on Walter.
"At this rate, the games will never be over"
Afcl already gets regular developer logs on patreon, so at least we're not kept in the dark. Also, we can't really blame them for the problems they have and complain about not getting our monthly update.
Afcl being one of the fvns that get regularly updated, is already pretty great as an fvn being made by like a small team compared to echo projects (1 is currently sick [Mr.Bear] and the other is busy with college [Andy])
Tennis ace for example has been out longer than afcl and it still hasn't finished a route + they added a new romancable character
Afcl has one of the best uis in an fvn, multiple sprites for characters that aren't just side images and it's free (Knights College + Lagoon Lounge)
Honestly I'm just glad it isn't suffering from issues with the author (FBTW) or being stuck in purgatory (Blackgate) And not to be mean but If you can't wait, you probably shouldn't be playing unfinished fvns (There's a lot of these)