To everyone asking about the development, I looked around their Patreon, and as far as I can tell, the Itch page was abandoned. They do seem to still be working on the game, but I could be wrong because I didn't subscribe.
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I appreciate the reply. Sometime after my post i learned that this dev has 100% dropped the game in favor of milking patreon for artwork and ended development altogether. somewhere i saw screenshots of the dev's own comments to that effect. they don't enjoy programming/coding/scripting or whatever, just drawing so that's all they do now. Game will never be finished.