As I can't say anything about the developers methods now, I will say previous games and even previous versions of this game were much further along as well as had a handful of animations. I can't deny the definite change in work flow and progress or if they've decided to just "milk" it.
but I can say I definitely don't think his intentions are to be a scammer.
Seems about a year or two ago, he changed the systems he's using for both games and had to start completely over on both. To, I'm guessing, make the game more as he envisioned it. Since this change, everything's really slowed and became less communicative. Guessing they're just busy with life.