It ties in with the lack of time and resources too -- if you don't structure your development to have time to do user testing, you won't magically find that you have time to do it at the end, either.
> "Friends around us were saying “it’s too difficult” right to our faces, but amidst our nonstop-no-days-or-time-off working, we were too dull to let it inspire action."
So I guess they did have some people play the game -- but they didn't build in the time they needed to properly use the feedback, so it was almost the same as not play-testing.
More play testing would have helped a great deal, IMHO.
I played it for about 20 minutes. It seemed an okay game with a really awful user interface, and if they had ditched that mechanic they might have found themselves making something a lot more fun. I would up rage quitting in frustration over how artificially hard it was to control, thinking "These game designers hate their players, and it's a shame because they have something interesting hiding here."
Maybe I quit two minutes before it became a glorious game. That doesn't excuse the terrible experience I had at the beginning, though.