radlord

Hazelnut Latte v0.14 Progress Report 9/2/25

Added 2025-09-02 15:00:13 +0000 UTC

Hello and welcome to another progress report!

v0.14

We're officially in the weeds with v0.14. Our primary focus is ensuring everything works as it should, which involves extensive testing. And since we're at the end of Ep 6, going through the whole game over and over, making different choices, and making sure things work. It is very slow and tedious work, but it's the kind of work that eliminates problems and poor user experiences.

I've also been going through and setting up the gallery and adding new images to unlock.

I have one small thing I need to work on, which accounts for 1% of the work. Additionally, testing the unusual routes is 5%, which is what Noba has been doing over the last week. After that, we're going to have the whole team try to break it and stress-test it, which is the last 10%.

Small steps, but the future is looking good, and I think we're moving at a good pace, all things considered.

I was going to work on the final touches of the script, but I didn't want to interfere with what Noba was working on.

Unity v0.15

As we near the completion of v0.14, we are entering the final phase of the Ren'Py era, and I am growing more focused on Unity. Lotus, Koth, Pamika, and Kokman are absolutely crushing the Unity work.

I received some sketches this morning from Kokman for a new lewd scene in the Unity build, which already looks amazing.

Koth has been doing outstanding work that I can't really discuss yet, but he is a beast.

Lotus has been constructing Episode 1 in Unity with placeholder assets, and I'm excited to play it!

Pamika and I are currently working on revamping the look of Cafe Estros. We actually created a floor plan, which Pamika designed in Blender. This will help us get a feel for the space, and it's looking quite good. As a result, she will start drawing the backgrounds soon. When we first created Cafe Estros, it was over a year or two, where we would add a new room without any concern for the player, since we didn't think HL would be a game where you moved between rooms. Now that it is, Pamika and I are keeping that in mind as we make the new backgrounds.

Personal Stuff

This past week, I actually did something that I had been thinking about for over a year. When I transitioned to full-time game development for HL, it was a truly amazing step for me as an artist. I was so excited to be able to work from home and make art. It turns out, my brain really hates working from home. I find it very difficult to focus, and my most productive days are when I go out to a cafe to work. Sadly, I can only do so much work at a cafe. (I have to look at bits at some point.)

Not only is it hard to focus, but it's also hard to clock out and focus on my husband and my life outside of being RadLord, since my work is right there, on my computer, in the bedroom. It's hard to clock out and then play a game for fun when I just worked an entire shift in the same spot I am about to play Destiny. I get antsy; I get cabin fever - it's just not good.

So what do we do about this? I'm going to rent a small office space so I can actually go to work somewhere. Wake up early, have breakfast, commute to work, sit in an office, and then clock out and come back home. I realized that my brain is conditioned from school/work to operate this way... But I also think I like it? So that is the plan. It's a month-to-month lease, so if I hate it, I can stop. I think I'm going to love it.

Now, this new expense means I will have to work harder to make up for the money I'm going to spend on the office/supplies/internet/etc. But I think that the new environment is going to be such a buff to my mental state that I am going to be performing better, thus earning more.

Thankfully, September is expected to see the release of the Alpha for v0.14. Which means while you're playtesting, I am gathering data and also trying to build a new desk for my office. I may not work as much this month as I get my office set up, but I'll make up for it!