A relief, but also arguably makes things worse, as it means that there's no reason to keep ghosting everyone. Seriously, it's going to be a year soon. No job would allow you to go MIA for so long. (And yes, as people paid money, I do consider this to be a job)
I sincerely hope that she sorts things out and manages to finish the project, even if not all that was planned will make it in. As someone said elsewhere, something is better than nothing.
I mean, there was never really a reason to ghost anyone to begin with. No matter what was happening, she could've taken a few minutes to just write two sentences to let everybody know what the deal with the game was. A big update with explanations and apologies, while nice, honestly isn't necessary. People just need something, like you said, and the sooner the better.
And while there may not be anything going on with her now, there definitely was at some point—health and family issues were mentioned in another thread. What I'm guessing happened, is that she got overwhelmed by these things and didn't post anything due to that, and now she likely feels too anxious to communicate at all since it's been so long (similar to what she described in this old update). But she really, really shouldn't think that way, since it's obviously avoiding posting that's the problem. There isn't anyone that wouldn't be relieved to hear from her, even if it is this late.
I also hope she can finish this in the future. All that seemed to be left was editing, proofreading, and maybe programming? It just wouldn't make sense to give up so close to the finish line, and it'd be such a waste of effort too. There was clearly a lot of thought, love, and time put into crafting this world with all its characters and lore. She owes it to herself, her backers, and her story to share it with everyone.
Real life circumstances happen in extremes sometimes. It's easy to say no matter what, but if you're in a situation where you lose your home and are living on the street then there wouldn't be a way to update everyone. It's easy to forget that sometimes people don't have access to the internet. Thankfully, this isnt the case here, but I think it's important for people to keep stuff like that in mind in a world where we assume everyone's online and has the ability to do so throughout their lives.
