Not completely dead, but on hiatus for now. I changed up a lot of things because I wasn't happy with the story and what I had created up until that point, I felt that my game making ability outside of the visual aspects wasn't at the standard I'd like it to be so I decided to get some more practice by working on some smaller projects. Going forward I'm planning on moving the project over to MV mainly due to it's ability to port to android and ability to reach a wider player base. I addressed some of this in a blog on RMN but I've since made the game page private for the time being, so here's the latest screenshots in case you've missed them. So yeah, I'll get back round to XIX eventually with bushed up skills and hopefully deliver a much better experience than I would have
I'm mainly focused on Aubade right now, there's a thread
here if you'd like to check out what I've been up to (there should be a demo out in the coming weeks), I feel it has the same strengths and values that XIX had with, like you said, a strong aesthetic and simplistic storytelling. I have a planned sequel for Aubade called Serenade that will recycle quite a few ideas I had for XIX but didn't continue with over the various changes to the project. Apart from that I have a film noir/detective idea in the works and I'll resume work on
The Good, The Bad & The Pork once I get round to commissioning a tile artist.