I have some actual progress to share this time!
My efforts for the past month have largely been focused on one thing: UI. My initial plan was to slowly build out the UI alongside content for the foreseeable future, but I recently realized that plan heavily clashed with my demo update goals. I don't feel confident that the current demo accurately represents the game anymore (though I won't be taking it down, don't worry), and updating it has become the priority. I'm very glad I shifted towards this direction when I did. The amount of work actually involved in the demo update became shockingly apparent once I began work in earnest.
The majority of this work comes from the UI side. There were various system overhauls that needed to happen, but those have mostly been resolved. Unfortunately these system changes can't be thoroughly tested (nor can content be properly reworked for them) until the UI has been updated to support them.
Thus, the UI remake! Everything, and I mean everything, will be remade. The goal is to achieve a cleaner and more professional look, while also substantially improving reactivity to input. I also want to make resolution scaling more dynamic as the current method is... rushed.
The first section of reworked UI is the 'unit card', the thing that shows in the bottom left/right during battle:
These are, roughly, the remaining tasks for the demo update:
Rework the UI (Battle, Map, Teambuilder, Dialogue, Settings).
Add mid-battle dialogue systems.
Rework most content to fit new systems (easier than it sounds).
Restructure and rewrite the chapter 1 narrative to better represent the "final" version.
Rerecord most (if not all) narrator lines to fit new narrative.
Significantly polish rougher aspects (ex: resolution scaling, save management).
A few other small secret things.
I have an internal goal date for the update but I won't be sharing it yet. There's a lot of near-future life events that could slow down (or speed up) development, so I can't really predict a timeline at this stage.
Regardless, I want to share more progress. I'll probably be doing more videos and small posts in the near future, going into specific new mechanics and changes. The first will be about something you can probably spot from the image above!
Finally, here's some new art for a familiar scene: 
It feels like he's missing something...