Well… I just got my copy a few minutes ago.
The animations might be one of those things you just kind of get better at as time goes on.
I think, given you released at a “60%” completion state… one thing that may be pivotal in pushing sales is timely updates. If the animations guts your ability to do them… then they may cause more harm than good right now while you’re just trying to build some revenue. If you’ve never tried… maybe you could reach out to some peers who have done a similar thing regarding a steam release. They might be able to share your experience and some dos/donts. Some might see you as a competitor and not reach back out but I’d like to think there’s one or more who’ll be happy to share their experience.
You could also make animations a fun side project and kind of hold on to them. Work to finish the base game then do a “special edition”/gold release/remaster with a prologue and dump the animations in to get a big surge of sales after the game is over and maybe solidify it as a source of long term passive income. I know this is things that are likely still likely years away based on your current development schedule, which is where pushing your present output up might be beneficial. If you’re able to invest some sales into hardware that will meaningfully raise rending speed or something (I’m talking out my ass… as I’m no game designer) then maybe you’d get a real return on investment. I would imagine revision drops will have blips of increased sales. Off the top of my head, I think Shale Hill Secrets made it to steam this past year and wasn’t finished when it did… or maybe it was doing the free demo/paid full version model either way, that might be a dev to drop a line to if it’s something that interests you. Even if your games aren’t the same… trying to learn the business sense of advertising and selling a AVN on steam is something maybe some of you devs can collaborate together on.
Anyways… great to see it make it. Best of luck to you getting over probably the same cold every other person seems to have… my household included.