Hello! Glad to hear you found the game interesting.
Regarding the development time, it took us around 5 years to the first release, but we had many periods of burnout. Some weeks or even months we would either barely make any progress or not work on it at all. So, we suppose 2-3-ish years would be a good answer.
Interestingly enough, there's a ton of lore for the game. A lot of the story dialogue is only accessible through beating the game at least 5 times, turning on more and more challenges each play-through. However, the global story of the game's world is a lot larger than that.
The story and world building for this game's universe has started good 5 years before the game's development. Unfortunately, due to mental health issues, we couldn't add everything we wish we did. Even with all those extras, the game was originally planned to be interconnected with several other, now cancelled, game projects, all telling their own story yet tying together at the end for a grandiose culmination.
We could go on for hours about the passion that went into this universe, but we'll spare you the time. lol.
Still, we're happy we managed to create at least some form of experience. As much as there are still bugs and balancing issues we'd love to fix some day if we ever manage to rekindle that game dev flame in the future.
Thank you for the comment and for your time. Hope you can get some fun out of the game, and have a great day!