Just dropped off my second survey response now that I've done everything in the build, so I wanted to bump this thread up to elaborate on some of the feedback I couldn't expand on in there.
First off, I just wanted to say it was, once again, an incredible experience. Minotaur Hotel is really a mastercraft in the VN space. Not only is it well written and drawn, it takes a lot of work to set the text pace to match the character's speaking cadence, to set the sprite animations to fit the scene and the text, to get the right music and timed sound effects for the scene, to pick when choices appear on screen and to properly write them to convey what's being chosen, to make a unique scrolling animation for each the major characters (including using it for an amazing Big Reveal), the secrets and small cascading choices that have these small fun effects... really to just put this level of polish in. You all work very, very hard to fully leverage this medium, and it glows for it. This is what makes Minotaur Hotel truly feel alive, and it's no small task to do so. My sincerest thank you to the whole team for all the really hard work you put in to make this piece shine.
And all of that praise is without even touching the writing! It continues to be top notch, the characters continue to feel alive, the tension rises and falls well, the mysteries layered on mysteries are fascinating, and as a player I was actually rewarded for figuring things out. It's a hard line to walk, but it's walked with aplomb.
And I know you all were worried about the Hinterlands arc (less so after the devlog it seems), and it can feel a little sudden to start (yes, having Storm be our PoV character helped a lot), but players quickly see the parallels between the story being told there and back in the hotel. I truly came to love the real down-to-earth shift it provided, and think it really enriches the experience. Not only does it flesh out the world and the real aftereffects of things like Clement's actions, I think it expertly reinforces the themes you want to convey. And it has 2nd best boy, Storm! Well done.
And while I'm still slinging praise, great job once more with the art, Nanoff. The new cg's are excellent: P and Storm in the car stands out, especially since it fit so well narratively while being a genius way to cut down on needing extra assets. The zoom in shots with Asterion, both brushing his back (that wonderful tongue sticking out sprite!) and getting to truly be face-to-face with him felt special because of the extra work you put in on them, and they really enhance the experience. In addition, I still have old builds kicking around, and I know it was a lot of work to redo the sprites as you have (even if they had to be done from a technical perspective for future customoo-zation), but I think the little touch ups you added are great. Great work.
To stop myself from being here all night just singing your praises though, I should switch to the parts I wanted to expand on and maybe spark some conversations about, eh?
- I tried out runs with all three characters you can ask Jean to find for the hotel, and I was pretty confused about Wolf and why he didn't get to have any sort of special ability like Khenbish's cooking or Themba's financing. At least, it didn't call it out if he had one, I'm not sure if he maybe can mitigate danger in the way the speedrunner background can? Perhaps you could add that or make his danger stat a -1 or -2 to make him a more meaningful choice? To be honest, I already found him weakest of the three (his intro drags to emphasize stuff we already know about wolves in my opinion), and this lack of ability didn't help.
- I like the start of the side-routes, getting to know our staff more, but I was kind-of disappointed that Luke mostly just stands there and infodumps his story at you. Since we have more of a rapport with Luke to start from, why aren't we chatting over drinks, or while walking around to stretch our legs? This is the flipside of all the polish that goes into the rest of the vn, just standing around and hearing from a sprite of Like doesn't feel as engaging without the movement, or the extra slice-of-life factor of getting interrupted by the Cobalts to help with something. Instead it feels like we're arbitrarily getting one conversation topic done in the chain, then stopping for the day so you have to spend more time tomorrow because time is a resource in the game. I know this means extra work on fleshing these out, but it didn't feel as rewarding as Asterion's Project, or talking to Robert (not counting how much better recruiting an extra hand is at this point in time), so I didn't do it in my 'main' runs.
- I found the process of earning things through R&D kind of odd. I understand gameplay-wise why we spend our accumulated points as though it was a shop, even if it would narratively make more sense to pick a project up front that gets points placed into it, but it's unintuitive to me that spending points only pops after you hear back from your R&D team during their report rather than, say, spending them while at your desk. I know you wrote extra variations of the scene based on who was assigned in R&D that day, which is a nice touch, but it felt clunky that this is the flow, waiting for the choice to pop up in a normal renpy button that doesn't list their price, either. Making yet another whole new interface is extra work, so even if you keep the purchase screen to the midday report, please add the cost to that choice because it's not a secret when it's listed at your desk.
Those are the three things I have for now. I encourage anyone to respond with their thoughts, especially since I'm trying to also propose solutions with my feedback, haha.
Thanks again for all the hard work you all put into this game for us.