Hello, HappyHand here, I have some sad news for everyone.
Steam hasn't given me any response on why the review is taking so long and what the problem with the game is, if there even is a problem. I tried sending emails to several different Valve employees, asked in Steamworks group, sent a support ticket and asked if they could just give me an estimate when they are done or if there's anything that I could say to you guys. I haven't received any response for more than a week from anyone, so sadly, the game is delayed until further notice for unknown reasons.
I'm extremely sorry about this, but there is nothing else I can do since Steam just won't contact me or even give me some date or information I could give you so this is all I can say. I waited until now hoping that Steam would at least give me some kind of confirmation I could give to you, but there's nothing from Steam and, again, I'm extremely sorry about delaying the game again and not being able to explain the reason or even the length of the delay to all the fans and customers waiting for the game and I'm sorry for waiting until now to inform you, I just hoped Steam would give even some sort of reply. I'm so sorry.
There have been other developers/publishers that had their game delayed too or even banned from Steam. Here is a video that explains why they were delayed or banned, the video is 10 minutes long, with the first 4 and half being about Sony's recent censorship issues and the rest is about this exact situation I seem to be in:
https://youtu.be/x3JL6wPuhhE?t=265
So it's possible Steam is just stringing me along, delaying the release because of rogue employee(s) or that someone in Steam is actually using "We do not allow exploitation/sexualization of children in games that are in Steam" as an excuse, so Steam is basically exploiting laws/rules set to protect children because of personal agendas and that is unforgivable.
Like other games in the video, Niplheim's Hunter does not have any children in it and all characters are bunch of the pixels on the screen representing fiction, but Steam, or some people in steam, might be using the above rule as an excuse to ban games with eastern/anime style art, which is outright racist towards Japanese developers and a terrible thing to do towards the hardworking creators that create these games so fans could enjoy them.
Maybe Steam doesn't want eastern/anime styled games in their store, I will respect their decision and publish the game elsewhere, but there are hardcore games like Meltys Quest and Makina published in Steam and some games, that don't even any sex are banned, so I don't know what is going on in Steam or what I should do.
I'm sorry for asking this, but if you could spread the above video around and tell more people about this whole situation in Steam, maybe Valve will check what is going on. Until then, the game is delayed and who knows what Steam will start banning next, because they won't tell and are extremely inconsistent with the bans and rules they themselves set.
I'm sorry about the long post and I'm sorry for burdening you by asking to spread the word and most of all, I'm sorry for not being able to release the game in time and having to delay it again, this time until further notice. The game might not ever see a Steam release at this rate, but please, to prevent more situations like this, please spread the word.
Thank you for reading and I'm sorry I failed to deliver the game in time.
HappyHand
*Dec 12 edit: The developer and I decided to change the release date to "Earliest possible release: Dec 17, 2018" since the developer has a hard time believing when I said that the game is stuck in review and Steam won't contact me so the game's delayed until further review. The "Earliest possible release" said Dec 16 yesterday and it will probably say Dec 18 tomorrow and the date will keep going further away until the review is over. This is just to prove to the developer that Steam is actually not contacting me and the game is stuck.
I understand where he's coming from since I still can't believe this is happening either, but that's the reason for changing the date, I will most likely change it again, very sorry about the confusion and this whole situation.