As AlphaKings said, The Guardian. Personal Assistant as well, and maybe Apocalypse (has some "assisted corruption" elements, but not quite at the level you're used to from these games).
Overpromising and underdelivering, constant delays among many other things. Some games kick off really well at the beginning and then end up hitting a wall for so many reasons, be it poor decision making, trying to appease platforms and/or people that are requesting content that wasn't intended...
Yeah, that dev. has a pretty poor track record when it comes to updates. It's one of my favorites, and if you're passionate about the characters - I'd recommend joining the Discord server and taking a glance at some of the fan-art channels. Plenty of gorgeous renders in there!
Definitely Acting Lessons. And Haley, because I really connected with it on a personal level. I mean sure, it's a fantasy.. but it's a fantasy with aspects that felt like home.
I'm not entirely sure. Dreams of Desire, DMD and some game where you play as a detective (can't remember the name) were among the first ones I've tried.
Oh, I don't envy you lol! I was actually quite depressed at the time I played it and I was using this VN to take my mind off of things. Then BAM! I don't regret playing it though, it's quite different and I can respect that.
Acting Lessons. That one really caught me by surprise.. was really sad when X thing happened (don't want to spoil it). Wanted to replay it, but didn't want to go through that again lol