Hello! This is the general thread for discussing Build 0.5, both before and after launch! Make yourself at home.
The minotaur's side of the story. · By
Save files from 0.4.1 should be compatible with 0.5...
That said, there is one exception. As we discussed in the latest DevLog, nanoff had some issues with his computer and lost some files, among them the key he used to compile the Android builds. We got a fresh key done so it should be mostly fine, but sadly this means that Android saves won't cross over to the next build.
Today we started posting on Twitter about some of the upcoming characters, so I thought putting it here would be interesting as well.
This is Themba, a very experienced grootslang accountant from South Africa. There's no one more eager to join the hotel's staff than him! Build 0.5 will have many new characters — which one do you want to know more about next?
Hey Perro,
When compiling 0.5 we needed to upgrade Renpy to 7.4.5 in order to get the Android builds to work- the problem is that Renpy dropped support for some old Windows versions in 7.4.
Someone in the forums had asked about this before (I'll be writing back to him right away), I downloaded the 7.3.5 sdk to compile a build that (might) be compatible with your windows version. I can't 100% guarantee that it will work bug free but if you absolutely can't get the regular version of 0.5 to work on your machine, this one might do the trick.
*edited because it was password protected, FUCK
Good job with the new update! I haven't read it yet, but I want to leave a few comments right off the gate. For starters, I've heard some speculation somewhere about Storm's lineage, including the possibility he reproduced somehow. I want to clarify this is wrong: if Asterion had sex with someone with a vagina, he'd end up getting pegged.
As for P, you might notice he shares initials with the word "peg." Now, it's easy to take this as P being more related to this whole Storm business than it appears at first glance, but I think it's meant to be symbolic. Going back to the Asterion pegging situation, perhaps what this reveals is a subversion of traditional gender values, as the greek statue-esque demigod, epitome of masculinity, even in this case assumes the more "traditionally feminine" role.
To tie this to P, perhaps the symbolic meaning of his name then relates to this act of subversion, in which he presents as a domineering, masculine figure, but has the capability to assume a more nurturing role around Storm.
So why is this important? The story has something to say about those who are lost, including those unable to fit in with society. The mystery of Storm's lineage is a red herring meant to distract from the tragedy of someone like P who has no place in modern society, in part because of societal values present as far back as the time of Asterion's pegging. In the end, P is the one who needs the hotel the most, it is made for him.
Anyway, I'm very excited to see how this update turned out.
Hey SaltyRoo, I'll second Minoanon and say it's intentional, but I do see where you're coming from- even if the humans are supposed to look kinda mundane and unattractive to contrast with the supernatural beings (some like Nini are supposed to look kind of grotesque), it's possible that it's not properly conveyed and it comes across as an excuse for bad art. The newer sprites, I think, get a little closer to this idea, but some of the old NPCs (Greta, Ismael, the trucker from Luke's intro, etc.) could use a redraw. We included a question about this specifically in the end of build survey because it's criticism I've heard a bunch of times. When you're done with the build, let me know if the more recent sprites look alright and get this across.
That said, even if we do redraw her, I think the old Greta sprite is too iconic to completely remove- we might keep it in the speedrunner route.
Man I feel like a kid on christmas, im taking my time with this build and really enjoying it. The way you make Argos character take a 180°turn, holy shit I love him now, the interactions between P and storm are just gold.
Also I wanna point out the amazing work nanoff did with the sprites and the animations, shuch as wolf's tail, the cobalts walking around, and the background moving while you're in the car, really nice touch.
You'all trully keep outdoing yourselves with each build, this was well worth the wait.
Your team certanly outdid yourself in this update: from better and more great sprites by Nanoff to certanly one of the most captivating story and the concept in general. This update was MOST CERTANLY worth the long wait. Can't wait to explore more of this update and I am super excited to see how this story progresses. A giant thank you for the amount you guys have put in this update! We don't deserve such creative artists like you guys <3
it was worth it to read it from the start again! New arts are breathtaking and new music tracks are more fitting and enjoyable!! I haven't finish the new chapters yet but I can already tell that It'll be amazing!! Worth the long wait~ Thanks the amazing devs for joining hands to create such a masterpiece.
I replayed from the start, and boy did it give me feelings! I was so absorbed that I played it for days on end. I finished it now, and I have to say - I feel a sense of joy, fulfillment that I gave Asterion so much love, and hopeful with how the latest chapter left off so far, but also a sense of emptiness because I now finished it. Never had any other VNs make me overflow with so much emotions like this. Thanks to the amazing devs and for this masterpiece.
This update is amazing. It provides so many answers and establishes world-building in great detail. The existence of other gods and deities, the Hotel creation, Asterios's trial ( which was incredible, I have collected all of the Olympian's votes and none of them was out of character except maybe Artemis but not really ), P and Storm's plot-line and especially our relationship with Asterios. Everything is moving at just the right pace but now the big question: Where is it gonna go next? All current antagonists are no longer working against us anymore. Argos has turned good, almost half the Olympian is working in our favor, the Hotel is running smoothly and with even more bara daddies company. So what obstacle is standing in our way from achieving our happily ever after ? Stay tuned next time for the next episode of Kota's Dragon Ball Z
P/s: I just going to call it first that if Athena is the harlot new antagonist, because of what Hermies said, then there's at least a 30 % chance that Ares just gonna randomly show up wreck the place
Hey!
I'm just going to start off with the most important bit first: To everyone who's put work into Minotaur Hotel, thank you so much for the experience so far, and I hope you enjoy a very well-deserved break!
I'm pretty new to visual novels (and furry subculture for that matter) but I had been told how well-written this story has proved to be and I don't regret at all giving it a chance. It's a wonderful accomplishment, and I'm grateful to you all for making it! I also really appreciate the inclusion of an SFW mode, which not only helped me more eagerly dive in, but makes me far more comfortable recommending it to friends as new to furry VNs as I was (even despite a certain incorrigible and insatiable bird of gay prey)
I also feel like adding that it's very rare to see a story handle topics of empathy, trauma and victimhood as thoughtfully as was done here. It's clear a lot of care and conscious effort was put into it, and that was very appreciated and affecting.
There's a lot more I can say that I'm sure has already been said and I can only echo, but as a newbie to virtually everything here—the medium, the content, and the subculture—I can tell you you've made something special—from writing, to planning, to music, to art—and I love it :)
Honestly, the only complaint I can think of is I miss having The Last Ones in the soundtrack. It was a banger.
Thanks for the comment rebyc! Really glad our handling of those topics is being well received.
We're planning on giving Luke's scene a bit of a rewrite, actually, I've seen people streaming the game on SFW panic really hard with that scene too many times to ignore.
And yeah, I share your sentiment: I miss The Last Ones, it was a pretty good theme for Argos. Though I'll say, early in the pandemic I was watching Tiger King and I kind of lost my shit when the song started playing as the intro to the documentary Joe Exotic was putting together. God bless licensed tracks, I don't think I'll see songs like Foolish Child playing on something like that anytime soon.
Now that I finished the vn and got all the achievements I decided to share my thoughts.
First of all I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS VN MY GOD.
The writing is superb, the world building is nice, the way how I went from not caring to Asterion to literally kill if anyone dared to hurt him so much it physically pained me to do the ruthless route for the achievements (I needed to mentally prepare myself for it).
I'm glad the ruthless route wasn't too fucked up but still portrayed how awful things could have been and explored how traumatized the poor bull is since we can't really tell much from the good route (at least if you're pursuing a romance with him like I did every chance I could), also the big revelations! I'm extremely curious as to where the vn will dive from here and I have high expectations! Thank you so much for this amazing experience.
Now I have some questions that I've been meaning to ask.
Is the mc going to stay as a "no face" self insert? If I have to be honest I'd much rather prefer if they were an established character but this isn't something that bothers me to the point it makes the vn not enjoyable, just curious if you guys considered making them an actual character (or just give the option to choose between self insert or using the "canon" one)
I vaguely remember reading something about being able to matchmake characters eventually, are we gonna be able to make the other guests fall in love with each other? Or they're just gonna develop romance alone? I'm saying this because Luke and Kota already seem really interested into each other (Not that I complain because they're cute as fuck together so I'm totally fine with that)
Final question, I'm psure it's obvious that we will get an Asterion sex scene eventually but what about the others? If the matchmake thing is included would that mean there would be a lot of sex scene variations?
Again thank you so much for this vn, I will continue to recommend it to my friends whenever possible this was an amazing experience <3
Picture not related btw
I just really wanted to leave a message to say thank you for the experience and how thoroughly I've been enjoying the VN so far. I saw the VN on related games and I decided to give it a try to see what it was about only to find myself becoming addicted to the story and completing it within days. I love Asterion so much ;-;
I've been really impressed with how the world has been built and how the characters have been introduced as I do have an investment in all of them at this point. I was also really impressed with music for the VN and how emotional it was making me. Especially the later part of the new update, I actually felt my heart racing to one track in particular. The themes of trauma & mental health are also very well thought after with the empathy and understanding the characters have for each other, it was quite endearing.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the relationship with Asterion will develop in the next update, I'll say it again, I love him so much. Thank you
This VN is AWESOME, I LOVE IT! But i have a quest, i'm on chapter 18 but there's a "If you're doing QA, STOP HERE". It's my first play through and i'm doing the good master route, so i stopped playing. Can someone explain what's that about, it caught me by surprise and now i'm kinda scared to continue (because of spoilers and such).
At last, I unlocked all ruthless endings and completed the game with 3 different backgrounds. I say 2 things about the game, one good one and 2 bad ones, and these points are explained with merely subjectivity.
Begins with the bad one. It's very interesting how the background affects dialogues, choices and interactions with all the characters, but I sometimes feel annoying when the games shows the phrase "Some actions are limited because of your background" during the gameplay, even if this was once. I admit that the VN isn't finished, but I think this message fits better when MC meets the old man, meanwhile the moment the phase is showed in the actual build would be replaced by another one according the chosen backgroung, non directly explaining what limited are you and which choices aren't available. This feature was very well in most moments, but this one.
Then, the second one. I must add that I believe Kota is the least approached character. Knowing he's a four hundred dragon who traveled to many places and is more experienced with the world, he would share more knowledge with MC, and overall with Asterion, instead being a matchmaker. I think his development is reserved for future builds, but now, take a rest, you've all deserved.
Now, the good one, and I'll say it with caps on. CONGRATULATIONS!!! The story is excellent. Every interactions feel too natural that scared me in certain moments. Many secrets, a lot of ways to find them, Argos' story, MC interacting with other NPCs, P and Storm's story, both routes, everything is very well implemented.
I'll say the same thing here that I wrote in the ruthless route topic: my brain betrayed me, since that moment I can't stop listening the mexican VA Blas Garcia's voice when Asterion talks (I'm mexican, sorry not sorry), he's even more cute when he's kind, and harms me more when he's sad, or destroyed in the ruthless master route.
One more thing, I cried so much in the underground chapter, when he tell MC how the realm became the hotel along some experiences. And that song named Foolish child made the moment further.
No other VN trapped me like MH and goes further as make my brain betray me or making me cry.
Once more, Congratulations.
Wow, this was really really good! I've definitely enjoyed this long, winding ride so far, good work!
I actually hadn't played since build 0.2, and though it's probably old news to everyone who didn't completely forget about this VN's existence in the interim, I want to personally shake the hand of whoever came up with the idea of allowing the player to completely skip that particular scene in Luke's introduction. That whole sequence is probably the only negative thing I have to say about the whole dang project, so I'm just getting it out of the way first. Thankfully most of the later content with Luke allowed me to warm up to him more, but the mild desire to take a shower any time he was on screen never fully went away. The dude's just kind of straight up gross, not gonna lie. By the end he was actually pretty endearing, sure, but still kinda gross.
As for everything else, wow, where do I even start? This has some seriously solid writing, and even though the Hinterlands chapters at first felt like they completely stalled the story, by the time Hinterlands III rolled around I was beginning to see how both narratives dovetailed into one another. The payoff was definitely worth it. I really enjoyed Storm and P's road trip adventure during chapter III and it contributed a ton to my positive disposition towards both characters. Do have to say Hinterlands IV felt kind of superfluous though, unless there's missable content tucked away in that chapter or something. Could probably omit it and lose nothing in the process, or roll it straight into Hinterlands V without bouncing around the narrative so much. Still, the story definitely would NOT be the same without those chapters, as the great majority of the world building happens within them. Even if it DOES mean putting off going on dates with best Husbando Asterion for like, an hour of gameplay.
I also noticed there was more varied music in this installment. Usually a problem most VN's have is very repetitive music, but thankfully this one has some decently varied tracks, and being able to switch tunes during Hinterlands III was kind of a cute touch.
I'll probably pop over to the spoiler thread to really get into some of my favorite aspects of this story, but for now, just know you're doing a great job. I'm definitely invested and unfortunately that means I now have to wait like all the rest for the next installment. I definitely want to replay it to at least see what's up with the character I didn't manage to recruit (For me it was the wolf), but sad to say, like Undertale's Genocide route, there will be no Ruthless playthrough for me. Don't think I could bring myself to do it.
Also, I actually forgot this was going to eventually have more NSFW content in it, the story just sucked me in that thoroughly. I came for porn, but received something I didn't know I actually wanted, Ha!
Hi, AgentBoogeyman. Thank you for your comment, reading it was very enjoyable and I'm glad you liked the game so much.
About Luke, we actually plan on returning to that scene sometime soon and tinkering with it. Looking back I still appreciate it in a number of levels, mainly how it conveys a lot about Luke, but we're very aware that it really didn't work for a lot of readers. So, while I'm proud of it, I also recognize it's probably the single weakest point in the game for a lot of people.
Truth be told, when we wrote it we were under the impression that our readers would be a lot hornier, so it was (an extremely pleasant) surprise to see just how everyone got engaged with the more complex elements of the story! Back then we were trying to balance out a lot of things, like Asterion's story and the guests' and bits or the setting and world building, and in the end we put too many chips in the adult side of things. So, you know, lesson learned, we've adjusted our course since.
As a broader idea, we also want the SFW version of the story to be more SFW. Some scenes have censored nudity, which is just OK enough while straddling the line, but the narration is often too adult as well so we should change that too.
As an aside, we made this whole decision about how to tinker with Luke's NSFW scene based on all the survey responses we got. That was supremely useful to figure out how to improve things.
About Hinterlands IV... It actually has a few purposes in the story but they are not apparent.
On the basest of levels the Hinterlands sections pull the narration from the post-scarcity, healing community of the hotel down to the struggling lives of people who were somehow denied chances in life. They "reset the palate", in a way, and this applies to all Hinterlands segments.
Now, speaking specifically about Hinterlands IV, we had a very good reason to put it in but it's a bit arcane. Telling it would spoil the fun of playing detective. What I can say is that there's a subtle but revealing change that can trigger if a condition was met in Hinterlands III and that Hinterlands IV is placed in a very deliberate moment in the game.
And have fun in the spoiler threads! It should give you an idea of the important things that happen in the Ruthless Route, if you want to learn about them.
Well, just finished my first run of the new build with Khenbish and a certain legal expert in my staff and wow, I need to play more because I couldn't finish all the things I wanted, but, I'm loving what I saw and I'm certainly going to take my time with the rest. Though reluctant at first to play the ruthless route, I'm very much on board with the whole hero/redeemer narrative, playing it game me a lot of insight into some of the lore and the changes from its first iteration, plus some pretty solid writing. It also lifted up the whole redeemer narrative to a whole new level and it makes my decisions feel more important that they would usually be. I enjoyed both the hitherlands and the new chapters, and you bet I'm going to play detective with certain documents and see where all the threads connect. I think I have a good idea of some things, but there are still a few mysteries I'd like to solve and a pair of guests I'd like to explore more. The new songs were a great addition and I think you did a great job of placing them in the scenes, I particularly enjoyed a few of them specially in a scene concerning two particular mythical and their strange connection.. Well, this is running a bit long, so, suffice to say I think you did an amazing job and I'll make sure to answer the survey once I have given it a few more looks.
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?
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.
Thanks a lot for the kind and thorough feedback, RockJock. I'm glad all the work we put into the game pays off and people notice all the polish.
And thank you for pointing out stuff that could be improved, too.
1) Yes, Wolf is the most barebones side character at the moment. We plan on expanding on him in the future as he gets his own route content and we have a side quest planned for him that I think people will really like, but we couldn't really get to it until we develop him more.
Hell, I think Themba and Khenbish don't get enough attention either, aside from their side quests and routes (eventually) they aren't very present throughout the main story chapters. I added the scene with Khenbish cooking a local dish in chapter 17 somewhat late into development to just give the character a little more presence and write fun interactions between him and the cast. They were kind of a low priority since we had so much stuff we wanted to get to, aside from chapter 14 there isn't a single day with a management section attached that didn't have some sort of story event attached, we didn't have space for an optional scene even if we wanted to.
As much as I'd love to do that on one of the future 0.5.x patches, maybe add an extra day in the middle where your chosen character talks with Asterion maybe, to flesh them out more and show how positive of an impact he's making on people's lives, 0.5 is really intricate and I don't want to mess with it.
2) This is a great idea. I don't think it would be hard to go back and make small rewrites to have Luke and the player do some tasks while you talk, and more cobalt shenanigans are always fun (though it requires a little extra effort since the scene only takes place in the lounge if Luke is manning it, otherwise Luke helps out in reception). It's definitely something to keep in mind when we write the other characters' scenes.
3) Yeaaaah it doesn't make a ton of sense, does it? Unfortunately it would be hard to fix now. I think I can shuffle some stuff around and have the selection happen before the team is shown, that's definitely doable and would make it less jarring, so I will give that a shot... but moving the selection over to right after the daily agenda before the Mc does his daily tasks would be really hard, I can't promise that.
Certainly! With the work you all put in and the enjoyment I get out of playing, it only feels fair to repay it by engaging with you all here.
1) Yeah, I think it's a fair point that none of these three choice characters really get to shine yet. I picked Khenbish in my first run and was a little sad he didn't get to do a whole lot, but the homecooked meal was a super nice touch! And Themba is similar, but because he knew Asterion and provides insight that affects some dialogue later when thinking about P's grandfather, he feels more integrated even if he has the least scenes (No homecooked meal or second PoV chapter like Wolf). Oh and that reminds me that the artifacts you can find for the front desk/way you summon one as the Art background to get your 2nd choice in the list are genius. I felt it looked empty until you find one (or two), and it adds a lot getting to permanently see them as part of the background! Kudos on finding fun ways to showcase choices there (same with the restaurant screens).
Have you all considered how many days the player is going to get during the VN? Or well, it doesn't matter the exact number of days but rather how many things you want the player to see through to completion in a single playthrough in general. The MC has nearly infinite time, but the VN and main plot doesn't: you've mentioned multiple times that the player will not have enough time to do everything and learn everyone's stories/do everyone's sidequests in a single playthrough, which leans in to making the big choices matter more since more people will see all sides of them. I think that's a fair and important approach to take that leverages the VN medium, but maybe you're going to find you need to squeeze in more actions in a day to hit this number of completed things you're planning on having the player hit in an given run?
Looking at this build, you have I think 12 days to work with, with your options increasing over time. Luke's hangouts have 5 days (IIRC), Robert takes 4 to recruit, Asterion's project is infamously a 9 day affair that starts 3 days in, and that's not counting wanting to cook with Khenbish or manage assets with Themba to see how it works, get the flavor of them working, etc. If we give 5 hangout days for the other 5 staff members you can recruit in this build and count 1 day for seeing how Khenbish and Themba each work, that puts us at 45 days worth of content (and don't forget that it's about completion, so it's in chunks of 5, or basically 9 for Robert since you have to recruit him first). While part of the point is to have a lot of options, this many may already limit how many other things can pop up to take the MC's time - we already know of 3 new staff members for next build (even if only Leaders can get all 3), and there's still the Hydra we have concept art for and one other character hinted at in this build that could be staff, too (a certain book author that keeps popping up).
Also, there is an opportunity cost letting a character be idle for the day instead of contributing to R&D or Exploration. We might see this more when there's a larger 'Tech tree' ready in R&D.
You all know what feels right with the number of things you want the player to complete in a run versus the number of days you have in the plot, but if you're feeling squeezed and think your average player will do 2, maybe 3 full playthroughs and worry the content would take 5 or 6 to see 'most' of it, perhaps you could move Hangouts to their own timeslot in the day? Maybe call it 'Grabbing lunch' with a character? Keep the opportunity cost of making them have an idle day off, but now I can grab lunch with Luke and start recruiting Robert on the same day. It frees up a lot more time for the MC, so you need to give them extra little things to burn their 'active' part of the day on or have slice-of-life events pop up that take this 'active' time away, but it doesn't feel too bad as the player to 'lose' a day since I'm still progressing with my staff during lunch time. This also ties into point 2, making the hangout with Luke (and others) feels a little more dynamic: chatting over lunch certainly feels relatively peaceful and a good place to just have a lot of conversation rather than movement if that's easier.
EDIT: Of course, this is more to plan for, more content to write, etc. Just wanted to throw out the idea since you've already mentioned having a hard time fitting certain things in that you wanted, sometimes things just have to be cut and stay on the cutting room floor.
3) Oh yeah, I know how finnicky moving around code and order of operations like that can be when you already wrote it one way, haha. Even moving up the selection would help I think, and if the system doesn't get shuffled around, I think you can still get a win if you just write the text a little differently to flow with what can't really change a lot.
I think in general we want to give players enough time over the course of the full game where they can do a lot of what they set out to do and get to know a handful of staff members well, but leaving enough stuff left to do for a subsequent playthrough.
0.5 definitely skews hard on the "lots of shit to do, too little time" side of things, especially if we keep adding side stuff on 0.5.x patches like we plan to do, so 0.6 will most likely be a breather episode where we give players plenty of free time and focus more on Asterion's romance and the side characters than the ongoing mysteries. Which will still be there, but I think the last couple chapters of 0.5 were eventful enough and the cast deserves a break without too much crazy shit happening.
finished my first playthrough, and let me say something: My HEARTH was NOT prepared for it.
I Was not prepared for the pandemonium in the end of the episode 18. My HEARTH is still SHAKING, and I'm pretty sure that I'm still trembling from it.
oh, my goddess, that was incredible. I could not love that bull more that I am now, I'm spending half of my day thinking about him, and the other half waiting for an excuse to talk about him even more. I will have to take a time to try to do another playthrough.
I can't wait to see what the next updates may or may not bring.
ps: i'm curious about that big reveal that argos hinted...
Well, I sent my writing to a writing contest or two over the years and it never got anywhere so, going from those experiences, I wasn't betting on any sort of victory. I still hoped we could do well, but it was mainly coming from how much we know people like the game. More or less "a lot of people like the game, so who knows." In the end I was hopeful we'd at least make it to the shortlist, and I wished we went as far as getting an award.
I can't speak for the others in detail, but in general we were unsure. To be honest submitting the game at all seemed like a silly idea in the first place. We also didn't know how well a visual novel like Minotaur Hotel would fare in a lineup of more experimental and mechanics-oriented games.
there are a number of factors, some projects only become available to be completed after certain points in the story. make sure your team has plenty of tech and your exploration has surveying, as those are the most relevant stats for what this build has to offer. other than that, you may try the maths background, since it gives you the most explicit information. tech background will also give a passive buff to the tech stat.
Sadly, it's not really possible.
We can compile a version of the game for iOS but we can't get it on the App Store because of Apple's policies regarding adult content. As such it's only possible to get it running on jailbroken iOS devices, which we can't test ourselves since we don't have any. So, even if we did get a build out, we'd have no way to see if it's working or not.
We'd like to get the game on iOS, it's just that we can't.
I hope in the future there might be a bug report Thread, but in any case. When I have Khenbish hired, Kota being the lounge manager. I get this odd bug. I had during the same day, the restaurant screens project completed and Khenbish bringing in a Rug from his culture. But his sprite glitches and then he has the uniform from Luke's branch? Is this a flag error?
I was wondering where you found all of the background images for the desert scenes and the valley, they remind me of parts of Western North America, like Utah or parts of New Mexico, even bits of Texas or Arizona (Mostly Utah and New Mexico though). I know that the backgrounds for the context of the VN are just meant to show a desert location, and not literally be in a specific part of the United States, but I am really curious what real life locations the images are based on.
Greta is getting a new sprite for 0.5.2. I try to make human characters look kind of ugly on purpose in the game (so when you see a divine being passing as a human, or a gigachad like Androgeos, there's a big contrast), hopefully this one gets it across without looking terrifying. Did my best to capture the chaotic energy of the original sprite.
We're keeping the original for the speedrunner route though.