No worries, I'm always happy when people contact me about the project :3
Yeah, that demo is the outdated one that I removed from the main page since it's got loads of old art and other stuff that's no longer in the game now that I've acquired various assets. I figured I shouldn't delete it from the jam page though, because then it would like like I didn't submit anything for the jam, haha. But in that old demo all the character art, background art, and UI is just placeholder stuff that has been changed now, so it will look much better than in that demo once it's finally released in full! :D Comparing that old demo to the way the game is now, there's a huge difference in quality (at least I think so anyway xD)
I'm really glad that you think it seems worth your time to play through anyway :3 Half the reason I removed that old demo is because it's so crappy looking that I was worried people might think that's what the final release will look like and it'd put them off of playing the finished game xD So I'm relieved to hear that you don't feel that way even after trying it, haha.
I definitely won't be abandoning the project as I too know how much it sucks when that happens with an interesting sounding game :3 Besides, I've put well over 1000 hours into it at this point so if I just quit that would be a lot of wasted time >.< haha. I don't know the actual amount of time as I never bothered to count how long it took me to type up the story in a word document (it took months though), type out scripts, create characters etc. But in terms of putting the game itself together, I'm currently on 963 hours in the builder according to Steam xD
I also think it's important to be active when it comes to interacting with a community and believe me, I'm super grateful for every single person that shows interest in my project <3 I suffer from anxiety and depression, so the project is a big part of what keeps me going and the smallest bit of support means the world to me ^-^
I'm probably going to miss my release target that I set for myself, but unless something goes incredibly wrong it should definitely be out by the end of this year! (I'm still hoping to manage releasing it before winter.)