Minotaur Hotel

Archived Art Stream #3

Hi, dilukha here!

Thanks to everyone who watched the Art Stream! For those who weren't able to go, I ended up talking about the public reception of the VU after our last progress update, walking through my art process with Argos' sprites and even showing off a couple other secret things we have in store. Remember that there'll still be another Art Stream this month, and in that one I'll be working on another sprite from scratch!

You can watch and download it here.

(Also, I forgot to turn on my pngtuber this time. Sorry about that!)

Archived DevTalk #2: Hanging Out With Luke

Hello, dearest readers!

First, I must thank everyone who could make it, and I apologize for the technical difficulties we had at the start. Despite those hiccups I think we had a great time. It's always fun talking about my writing and all the fun plans we have in store, and what plans we have for Luke!

But if you couldn't make it, no worries! We recorded it and here it is for your pleasure.

You can watch and download DevTalk #2 here.

I'm thinking of doing the other DevTalk I promised later this week, Saturday or Sunday at the latest. Stay tuned for more news!

—Mino.

VIP Story #5: Oscar's Oral Odyssey Part 4

And here we have December's VIP Story! This one's a little more subdued and subtle than the previous ones, which I think matches Kota's spirit.

The next chapters will bring in and include Khenbish into the story, hopefully you'll enjoy it!

~~~

They moved to the bed. Oscar unwrapped the dragon's leaking erection with the care of handling a flower. When it came free his eyes went up and waited for the dragon to nod his approval before he dove in to worship.

The strong but clean smell from a day of hard work, the ambrosia-like precum, how filling that dragonhood was in his mouth. But it was all without the excesses the minotaur had become accustomed to — none of Themba's or Black's girth, or Robert's shamelessness. Kota's manhood was fine, and so was his attitude, in a humble, subdued way.

And this ritual — it was a ritual, his education as an occultist said so — required a special kind of care. He traced Kota's dick from slit to its tip, let it slide beautifully against his pre-coated tongue, he sucked it in and out while twisting his head.

DevTalk #2: Hanging Out with Luke

Join our 2nd DevTalk, where we'll go over Minotaur Hotel's writing process while showcasing Luke's new and rewritten hangouts.

This will be the first time we'll be showcasing our writing method in a live document — still being written in a Google Docs, with unpolished paragraphs, notes strewn all over and even leftovers from cut content. This is what writing looks like!

Our 2nd DevTalk will happen tomorrow, Tuesday. It'll happen at 7PM UTC, or 2PM EST, but you can find the exact time in your time zone on our Discord server, on the Events tab, where you can also opt-in to get notified when it starts.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

—Mino.

Art Stream #3

Hi, dilukha here! Today I'll be hosting our third art stream where I'll be working on sprites and other miscellaneous assets as well as discussing some behind the scenes stuff! Don't worry if you miss it-- to make up for the lack of a November stream, there will be an extra stream this month.

Check the Discord server, in the Events tab, for the exact time in your time zone. As always, this stream will be recorded archived for anyone who's not able to join.

Hope to see you there!

Build 11: The Small Hours

Welcome, dear readers!

Today's build is all about taking a minute to breathe and reflect. It revolves around the aftermath of the fine dining experience with Pedro, Oscar and Asterion.

Originally we planned on this build being longer, but we made the decision to keep it shorter due to a mix of holiday schedules restricting some teammates' availability and wanting to take some extra time to polish a key upcoming moment.

Now, we did run into some issues with the Android build. We believe the issue is solved but if you experience any bugs, please inform us. Also, due to the exceptional circumstances of not having our full team available, this one time we did not update the list of patrons.

You can download Build 11 here.

Now, before you go...

On January we'll be focusing on Phase 1 of the Visual Update. This is a very important step and it demands all hands on deck — artists, writers, programmers — so we won't be publishing Chapter 20 content then. That update will go live here and on Itch.io at the same time, so that everyone can check out the new art and, most importantly, we can gather input on what, if anything, needs improvement.

I am also taking this opportunity to go back to the earlier chapters of the game in order to do a few more or less minor edits — to make the new art hit harder and to improve a few sentences and sections I've found lacking. I am also experimenting with a small change in the narrative style of a few select lines, but we will only know if that works or not after we do a prototype run.

We should be back with our usual schedule on mid February — which, you might remember, was supposed to have the biggest update, which would conclude Chapter 20. I am confident we will have a build out then, but due to the key scene we had to take out of Build 11 and the editing work in preparation for Phase 1 of the Visual Update, for February we might publish "the key scene" (which is quite hefty on its own right) and the "Big Build" might instead be pushed to March.

This is all subject to changes as development proceeds. We will have more concrete news in January, after we return from our holiday break. Regardless of scheduling, I am sure we will provide you with a more than satisfactory amount of content.

In regards to other rewards:

• This month dilukha will do two Art Streams. The first one will happen tomorrow, Sunday, and you can find more information about the precise time on our Discord server.

• Likewise, I'll most likely do two DevTalks. The date and time will be announced soon.

• December's VIP Story should be coming out on Tuesday the 16th.

• I would like to, very soon, post an open-access DevLog laying out our expected release schedule for the first half of 2026.

Starting on December 20th and ending on early January we will be going on a holiday break.

That's it for now. Have fun and happy holidays!

— Mino.

VIP Story #4: Oscar's Oral Odyssey Part 3

The hydra unbuttoned their pants, then pulled down their jockstrap to reveal a slit, dick already peeking out, and balls hanging heavy, full, almost bursting. They used Oscar's face as rag, rubbing that pretty snout and tongue all over his swaying orbs, before introducing the minotaur's mouth to the tip of his manhood.

He wasn't even fully hard and it was already about as big Themba's. Oscar didn't want to waste any time and dove in.

~~~

And we are back with the VIP stories! This time Oscar will be getting to know a yet unnamed guest of the Hotel.

This story was originally meant to go out on November, but some of our team mates were going out on holiday trips so we put our focus on finishing December's update ASAP even if it meant a delay on other monthly rewards.

So, consider this one of November's rewards, which means that over the next few days I'll be posting another VIP story for the month of December. Likewise, expect to hear about the DevTalk very soon, right after we publish the next build this weekend.

Visual Update Phase 1: Progress & Release Date

Hello, everyone! dilukha, Art Director, here. Around three months ago, we made an announcement explaining how the game’s Visual Update would be handled, and the team that’d be behind it. I strongly suggest that you go back to read it if you haven’t yet, as we go into detail about lots of things, but the short version is: the VU will be progressively rolled out in five phases, taking around four months each, though we expect the most important assets to be finished by the third phase. It will include every sprite and CG in the game, a lot of backgrounds and an updated UI, everything in a new, painterly style and full 1980p resolution. 

With that out of the way, let’s get to the big news:

VU: Hotel Basics 1 will be released on January of 2026. New year, new Minotaur Hotel!!

This update will be made public straight away, so you won’t have to worry about a Patreon exclusivity period. We wanted to release it publicly so long-time followers of the project will be able to check it out as soon as possible, and so new readers will take it as a chance to hop in. As we’ve mentioned before, Hotel Basics 1 will cover roughly the first act of the story, so if you know someone who has been meaning to read Minotaur Hotel, that’d be a good moment. As always, we want to thank our patrons for making the VU possible!

Now, let me do a brief overview of what we have been working on for the past months:

(Note: many of the images that are included here are not final and might be subject to change in the final release)

Sprites

As I mentioned in the past update, we know how essential sprites are to the experience of the game — these are the versions of the characters that you’ll be interacting with most of the time, so it’s extremely important that they’re attractive, expressive and stylistically consistent. The spriting team, currently made up by Rayan, Lappan and me, have been working together to ensure the new sprites feel polished and high quality while still preserving familiarity with the original sprites. Let’s start off by taking a look at America’s favorite gryphon:

Rayan was in charge of Luke’s sprite set, and he did an excellent job! Even before Nanoff’s departure, Luke was one of the oldest sprites and long overdue for a rehaul, so it’s been very exciting to see him come together.

I’ve talked about the general direction we’d be taking, but with Luke’s sprites, I can finally show you what I meant by all that. This time, the sprites are rendered, with visible brushstrokes in warmer tones that give it a handpainted vibe. They have a mysterious red light meant to evoke the magical nature of the setting, as a little signature of the style going forward. We’ve also made sure that our pivot to a more grounded depiction didn’t sacrifice expressiveness, and there’s been a lot of sweat, tears and redlining put into keeping the emotion and charm of the original sprites. Luke here didn’t really change any, he’s still the same as ever! On the other hand…

Ok, so, you guys know how Kota’s design has already gone through three iterations, right? … You know what would be really funny?

Now, this redesign isn’t as radical as his last one, most of his key traits have been preserved, but he has been subjected to a couple adjustments. It was Lappan’s task to work on him, and he made some suggestions that we couldn’t help but find extremely charming and befitting of his character. Kota now sports a longer, flowier haircut, differently shaped horns, a pair of noodle whiskers and a more visible tail. A little fang, too! On top of that, he received a nice new outfit for the bar, and he’s generally hairier all over.

Of course, please tell us how you feel about these changes! As always, we value player feedback, and we’re not opposed to going back to readjust things if we see compelling reasons to do so.

Moving on to none other than your most loyal servant! People who’ve followed me for a while might be aware that Argos is one of my favorite characters ever, so it won’t come as a surprise that I took the liberty of working on his sprite set myself — and it’s been a delight to work on this smug little rascal.

He’s also been revised, though that’s less of a design change and more of a simple difference in depiction. One thing that had come up in our discussions with the writing team was that the way Argos was drawn didn’t really match the way he was described in-text — slender to a bony degree — and keeping in mind that we were aiming for a more grounded direction, it was necessary to have his build be better reflected by his sprite set. 

So he’s been hit with the twink ray, irreversible. This version of Argos not only adds a bit of variety and contrast against the generally larger builds of the rest of the cast, but also highlights the sheer pathetic, absolute wet sock appeal of his character.

Additionally, I decided to give him two additional poses (on top of the ones he already has) that will be retroactively added to some of his scenes. His original sprite set had a lot of emotional nuance, which I always loved, but a limitation he always had was that his poses had to work for both “sides” of his character, which are very different. These two new poses, Theatrical and Shy, are meant to really drive home the shift between Argos Panoptes, Foreman of the Labyrinth, and… well, you know. These poses are still in their sketch phase, so you’ll have to wait a bit more to see them finished!

And it’s not just the main characters that have received attention. Minotaur Hotel has many human side characters (I myself was surprised by the amount when I sat down to actually count them) and they’re an important part of the world that make it feel lived in, even if they’re not the main focus. The original intention of the human sprites was to make them feel ordinary, “kind of ugly” in the way normal people you’d pass by on the street are, as a point of contrast against the fantastic mythicals you come across in the hotel. It was obviously important to keep that naturalistic approach — we are going for a more grounded style, after all — and hey, it was a fun exercise to try to find a way to make humans fit in with the furry sprites. Here’s the new sprites for the old man, a certain tricky deliveryman, and everyone’s favorite hotel guest. These were done by me, but other members of the spriting team will work on human sprites as well!

I mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Asterion will not be having his sprites redone in this update. He’s both the most important character and has the most complicated spriteset by many orders of magnitude; he’s a challenge that we’ll have to take on when we know we can do him justice. So, again, please be patient with us. The bull will come home eventually. In the meanwhile, let’s move on to…

CGs & Backgrounds

We mentioned before that some of the backgrounds in the game, not only those drawn by Nanoff but also some of the ones that used to be royalty-free images, would be getting updated. One of the biggest priorities for us was the Valley. You spend a significant amount of time here, after all; it’s the background for the expeditions and most of Argos’ scenes, which make up a pretty big chunk of both the first and second act. It always deserved something a bit more personalized. So, lo and behold:

Faun, one of our background artists, was the one tasked with updating the valley, and needless to say, they did an amazing job. Their delightful use of color variation and the realistic brushwork really gives the valley that natural, material feel that we’re going for, and you can expect that to become a staple of exterior shots from now on. Also, hey, remember those statues of the Olympians that are mentioned at the beginning of the story? They’re actually here now! A good part of going back to update the visuals is that we can just go and add those little details, which is really fun.

New illustrations for both Kota’s and Luke’s versions of the bar were also high on our priority list, and Kinutao is the artist that has been working hard on figuring them out. Of course, that means redesigning them from scratch, taking in account how Kota’s and Luke’s personality affect the vibe of each version. What we can show you right now are the 3D models that Kinu has designed:

While Kota’s version of the bar is a very sophisticated, geometric space arranged in an almost grid-like way, with heavy pillars that will have painted murals on them, befitting of Kota’s elegant, strict nature…

Luke’s is full of wavy, organic shapes and neon lights, giving it that flashy, slightly tacky nightclub vibe that Luke feels at home in.

Being the one responsible for designing the bar backgrounds, Kinu himself is also the one working on the CGs for Asterion’s concert. This one was one of the CGs in most urgent need of replacement, since not only is it one of the oldest ones, but even key elements (such as the design for Asterion’s lyre) have changed along the course of development. It’s also a big step for Asterion as a character, who’s just now starting to open himself up to the world again. It’s a very intimate moment that shows his growing closeness with both the guests and the MC, so needless to say, Kinu has put a lot of effort into really elevating that beautiful moment.

Asterion’s face bathed in light, with the lyre strings’ partially covering him, as if he was getting completely lost in the music… Both the writing team and me were in love with how conceptually strong this idea is, and we can’t wait for everyone to be able to see it finished in-game! 

And as our last CG to showcase for today… ok, let me set the scene for this one.

The cold room extends into absolute darkness, a hallway in and of itself. You proceed, scraping your shoes on the floor so you don't trip over the refuse.

The entire floor is covered with discarded glasses and cans. Whatever scraps were left in them has long rotted, dried and crumbled into dust.

Both your footsteps and breathing echo. The overbearing humidity drapes across your back, and your breathing becomes agitated. The stench is stronger.

Your sight finally adapts to the dark. At what must be the cold room's far wall,

 you notice the faintest glimmer…

Phwog was tasked with remaking what might just be one of the most important illustrations in the entire game; Asterion’s introduction. After trying out a couple different compositions, this is what Phwog arrived at, and the tension on display here is just spine chilling. Mind you, this is just a sketch still, so you can expect it to look even better when it’s added into the game.

As a side note, those who played the last public release of the game might remember that we included a form in the end asking for your opinions on many things, and one of the questions was regarding what kind of thing you’d be most excited about for the Visual Update. The most popular answer was overwhelmingly that you guys would like us to go back to add new CGs for key story moments, and worry not — we’ve taken note of that, and it’ll be taken into account when planning future phases.

Other than that, we’ve got one last thing to show you:

User Interface

One of the things we mentioned would also be getting an update was the game’s resolution and UI, and you might be surprised by the amount of work that has gone into that so far. Not only it’d be a shame if all that new art we’ve made was shackled down to the game’s native 1280 x 720p resolution, but the UI as it looks right now is a bit too digital and clean for this painterly direction we’re going in. I, personally, am also particularly finicky about it — UI design is one of my main fields of study. For that reason, redesigning the game’s UI is something that has been receiving a lot of attention.

When Hotel Basics 1 comes out, the game you’ll be greeted with will look a bit more like this:

(not actual game footage)

Hey, it really feels like everything is coming together now!

This new text box is not only sporting a new uneven, textured style, but it leaves a lot more space for the art in the game to breathe! Minoanon described it as a change that “feels vast and expansive in a way that fundamentally changes the game’s substance”, and I really like that — it feels like you’re getting a wider view into this fantastic world. I’m also happy that we could preserve the textured borders, as they were always part of the game’s identity to me.

Also, elephant in the room, they have side portraits now!

We felt that having side portraits as more abstract representations of the characters would be a good way to have some art directly inspired by their respective cultures, highlighting the mythological theming of the game in a way that felt simple and unique. We went through numerous iterations with different approaches for the side portraits, and in the end, we settled for this background-like version that felt unobtrusive while still communicating style through texture alone. We hope they’re a nice little addition to your experience!

It bears mentioning that the game will also have a different UI between the PC and the Android versions. Android players make up a huge chunk of our playerbase, so this version of the UI should be more comfortable to read and interact with from a smaller phone screen.

Now, obviously, everything I’ve shown so far concerns only the text box. It has received significant attention because it’s the element that players will be in contact with throughout the vast majority of the game, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about the rest! Our original plan was to have the whole UI redesigned by Hotel Basics 1, but we ended up noticing a lot of points where the UX and navigation of the game could be improved (such as the Task Assignment and Daily Planning screens), but not without significant time going into testing and implementation. For that reason, the UI redesign will probably be also spread out between multiple updates, and the first phase will be released with some placeholders.

And that’s everything we have to show you for today! I have to say, I have been extremely happy watching everything come together, and I’m glad we managed to find such a good team, so I hope this progress update has made you as excited as I am. As always, we have to thank our Patreons, who have generously funded everything shown above, and every reader who has stuck with the game so far. This was just a peek — we still have lots of great things to show you. 

— dilukha

Build 10: Io

Dear reader, it's time!

Today's update adds about 22,000 words to Chapter 20, and things are picking up! You'll find a returning mechanic — a "Hinterlands-style" exploration segment, but this time for Mt. Persephone — and a few familiar faces popping in to deal with some affairs.

This build has some nice amount of variation to it and you might want to go through it more than once. Not only there are more locations than you'll be able to explore in a single go, if you have recruited Themba you'll get an extra tidbit or two, and there's a good deal of other things adding little twists here and there.

Now, without further ado...

You can download Build 10 here.

Now, before you go...

If you didn't check our previous post, we have some news for our schedule going forward.

DECEMBER: Build 11 is coming out on December 13th for all patrons, with the Good Master Playtest going out sometime in late November.

Starting on December 20th we'll be giving the entire team a holiday break, so expect all other Patreon rewards (short story and AMA) to go out before then.

JANUARY: We're planning a special treat for when we come back from our holiday break. More news coming next month!

FEBRUARY: Build 12 will be biggest of all Chapter 20 updates and requires more time, hence its absence from January. If all goes well, it should come out around mid-February.

Internally we already have a release date for it and I feel reasonably sure we'll make it, but just to be sure we'll wait until things are further along before announcing it.

AND AFTER THAT: After Build 12 goes out we'll be shifting gears. Most of my time right now is going into implementing the content, with next to nothing left for writing. In order to keep things manageable, we'll be switching over to a schedule closer to Devil's Gambit — aiming for a release every other month, though there'll probably be some variance to account for our longer chapters.

Thank you for your support, and I hope you have a wonderful time with this latest version of Minotaur Hotel.

— Mino.

Builds 10 & 11 Release Dates

Greetings, dear reader!

Let's go straight to the good news, shall we? Build 10 is coming out to all our supporters this Thursday, November 13th.

I've been looking forward to this update in particular because it contains a brief segment with a returning mechanic — the "Hinterlands-style exploration". You'll be able to explore the underground on your own and see some of the sights for yourself. Maybe you'll find clues connecting things to previous guests of the Hotel, or you might figure out a thing or two about Asterion's past.

As for Build 11... Why, yes, we are also ready to share a release date for it! Or, at least, a tentative one. Assuming all goes well, Build 11 is coming out to all supporters on December 13th, with the Good Master Playtest build going out sometime between November 24th and December 1st. This is also a build I've been looking forward to, as it contains some extremely important character moments.

I originally wanted to release Build 11 on December 18th, as that would give us an extra week of work just to be safe, but that'd cause some conflicts with Devil's Gambit release schedule. But things have been going so smoothly that I feel confident that we'll be able to make it well under that deadline.

In fact, things have been going so well that I can even share a bit of the plans for January and February as well!

As I've mentioned before, Build 12 will be the longest and has the most amount of work left to be done, so we'll need some extra time to finish it. Coupling that with our holiday break, a January release date would not be doable. We'll probably fill that gap with a special treat — details to be announced! Then, assuming all goes well, Build 12 should be coming out on February.

I'm very proud of how well things have been going, production-wise. Things have been going so smoothly, we're already planning out the next steps with months in advance. But this will be a topic for another day.

Have a good week!

Build 10 Playtest

It's time, dear readers!

For those of you joining us just now, we're publishing a "playtest" version of next month's build a few weeks before it becomes available to all supporters. We do this to catch bugs, see how well the writing is hitting and finding places to improve.

If you're subscribed to the Good Master tier, you can find Build 10's playtest on the #patron-beta channel in our Discord server! Or consider joining and enjoying this and all the other benefits that come with it.

Development has progressed at a great pace and once more I can say we've managed to be ahead of schedule. We are still adding in a few last minute variations here and there but, aside from those minor aspects, Build 10 is essentially complete. It's also longer than the last two releases, and the writing starts picking up, so I figured it'd be a great time to push out the playtest build and see how people will take it.

Now, as happy as I may be with our time management, things are starting to pick up for us! Build 11 is longer, but hasn't been coded yet, and Build 12 is both the longest of the bunch and the one with the most amount of writing and editing work left to be done. In truth, a big reason why I've been pushing forward quickly is to give ourselves more time for Build 12's massive amount of work.

I'll have more news about our schedule soon, but expect Build 10 to come out around the middle of November, and for Build 11 to come sometime on the second week of December.

And as a last point, don't forget our upcoming 2nd Edition of "Ask the Minotaur Anything!" Send your questions and we'll get to them very soon!

Have a good week!

Ask the Minotaur Anything: 2nd Edition

It's time! This Friday and Saturday, October 31st and November 1st, we'll be doing the 2nd edition of our "Ask the Minotaur Anything" event. For those of you joining us the first time, we'll be going in-character and answering questions from our supporters (though we will also take questions aimed at us, the developers.)

We have a channel set up on our Discord server where you can send your questions. We'd prefer if they were all sent there because we'll be using a Discord bot to manage things and make it cuter. But if you have any issues with joining the server you can comment to this post with your questions and we'll get to them.

I want to make this fun for everyone, but we'll have some rules in place to keep things manageable.

1. When you ask your question, make sure you specify who it's meant for — which character or team member.

2. No more than 3 questions per person, at least until we open up for a second round of questions during the AMA.

3. Please no questions aimed at the entirety of the cast. Pick exactly which characters you want to answer your query.

4. Remember: questions will be answered in-character, so if you're asking something that character would never answer chances are you won't get much. For those situations you can also ask your question for us, the developers, and may be more forthcoming.

5. We'll skip spoiler-sih, invasive and offensive questions.

Have fun!

Build 0.9: Chelys

Dear readers, Build 0.9 is out!

This update continues with Chapter 20, adding three scenes and approximately 22,000 words — about 30% longer than what we added with Build 0.8. This should be the trend for the next few updates until we end Chapter 20, so prepare yourself for progressively longer sessions.

This update features a CG by ToraGoru for a moment I've long wanted to include in the game, and we have a special scene at the end that, I hope, will surprise and please our readers.

Apart from the new content, we're adding a new set of audio assets — two new ambiance tracks by Samples and one song by Eymon, which have been integrated into the scenes introduced in Build 0.8. My goal is for the new location we have introduced with Chapter 20 to have an entirely distinct and unique sound atmosphere to it.

For those of you curious to know when this update will go out on Itch, for now we cannot provide an estimate. A large percentage of our readership plays Minotaur Hotel on Android devices, which were affected by save file incompatibilities, and I want to have the Chapter Select feature implemented before we make this update available for everyone.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this build.

You can download Build 0.9 here.

Note: We updated the list of patrons in the game's credits but this was done manually as I'm still looking for the best automated way to do it long-term. If your name is missing from the credits or if you upgraded to a higher tier but your name remains on your previous, lower tier, please bring it up and we'll have it fixed on the next version.

Archived Art Stream #2

Hey there!

In case you missed dilukha's 2nd art stream, you can download it here.

That's it for now! See you Thursday — Build 0.9 comes out then!

Art Stream #2: A Very Special Argos Episode

Hey! Tomorrow our art director, dilukha, will host the second art stream for patrons of the Dear Guest tier and above. He'll be working on assets for the Visual Update while answering questions and discussing behind the scenes stuff!

Check the Discord server, in the Events tab, for the exact time in your time zone. If you can't make it, don't worry! This stream will be recorded archived for anyone who's not able to join.

Have a good weekend!

DevTalk #1: Let's Play Build 0.8!

Hello!

A while ago we did our first DevTalk on our Discord, where I played through Build 0.8 while adding some development commentary. It went on for almost three hours, which was a lot longer than I anticipated, but it was pretty fun.

I really liked this format, so for our next DevTalk I'll most likely play through Build 0.9. If there is enough interest I could see myself playing through older parts of the game after we're done with all the new content.

You can check it out here. Have fun!

Art Stream #1

Sorry for the delay!

Things have been pretty busy lately, and in all the hurry uploading the art stream and DevTalk got pushed back. I take full responsibility for this.

This Art Stream by dil was our first experiment with this incentive, and we ended with some technical difficulties on the audio. We're already taking measures to ensure a better quality in future streams and events.

For now we'll host our streams and DevTalks on Megaupload so we don't have to worry about Youtube policy.

You can check the Stream here, have fun!

Asterion's Chapbook

[from KangaRube:

I wrote these in the spirit of Asterion Minoides of Krete musing upon his growing affection and arousal toward the MC; these were the sketches on the way to the poems in Chapter 20. The kinds of thoughts he has as his passion grows, from the bashful to the wanton.

However: among the many written, these ones do not have a direct place in the game itself. Regardless: I present them here as if Asterion presented them to you himself, perhaps chanted to a lyre tune. They have been arranged to go from longing— to action— to satisfaction. I thank the Muses for their aid, and sing their praises here, and in another song.]

VIP Story #3: Oscar's Oral Odyssey Part 2

Back at the jacuzzi, Oscar was shameless. He leaned back and thought of that moment, right after Robert came with that growl of satisfaction, when the taste and smell of his cum overpowered his senses.

"I love how you taste, I could do it all day."

"Did you like that I went rougher this time?"

Oscar reached down to cup his reawakening erection.

"Yeah, Rob. That's what made me cum."

The demon asked another question, but Oscar didn't hear it. He saw Themba walking out of the pool. The water made his shorts stick to his skin. The full contours, peaks and valleys of his manhood, were plain to see. The minotaur knew what he wanted.

"How big d’you think Themba is?"

~~~

And we continue with this story! There's going to be a few more chapters of it over the next few months so prepare yourself.

While experimenting with these warmups, I realizing that standalone stories was more productive in the sense of allowing me to prototype relations between characters — what makes them tick, how they'd interact, what they might have in common — but making a setup was itself the most time-consuming part of the exercise.

Meanwhile, extending an already existing warmup was the "quick and dirty" alternative. It's nowhere near as exploratory or useful, but it's a quicker way to get myself in the writing vibe and being productive again.

We're going to see more of this dynamic as the chapters in this odyssey go on. It's gonna be... something.

Build 0.9 Playtest

Hello!

We've been hard at work on Chapter 20 and that's going great. We're even ahead of schedule! Tonight we're publishing the new playtest build on our Discord server for Good Master patrons, on the #patron-beta channel.

If you're subscribed to the Good Master tier but do not use Discord, or have any problems with linking your account to our server, please reach out to me via Patreon's messaging system and I will send you the files.

Have fun!

Dead Ringer is Out!

"You have (7) undead messages, detective."

Recently I had the privilege of working with Team Necronine, an incredibly talented group making a visual novel for the Spooktober 7th Visual Novel Jam. The result of this partnership is Dead Ringer, a dark comedy murder mystery. Here's the pitch:

It begins with a phone plugged into a faulty socket and an electric malfunction, it ends with seven dead and one missing...

Detective Maxwell is called to investigate what seems to be, by all accounts, an impossible murder. In all of his years, he has never seen a crime this gruesome perpetrated in such a puzzling way. All he has are the testimonies of three known survivors — socialite and lobbyist Meredith Eloise, her stoic butler Richard Torres, and the one surviving guest, Alexander Florence. There's also the matter of the missing person, Felix McCain, Meredith's good-for-nothing and embittered employee...

He must solve the case under a deadline; if he cannot catch the culprit by dawn, the place will be swarming with reporters, ruining his client's dear reputation. And Meredith values her good name more than her own life.

What's already an impossible crime gets dialed up when Maxwell finds an unexplainable oddity: a telephone that did not belong to any of the people at the party. Perhaps it was waiting for its next owner...

This was my first time participating on a game jam as a developer (which is funny considering that I have organized one before!), and it was such a great experience. And Dead Ringer was a new experience in a few other ways. Usually I'm in a position of relative power in projects, which comes with a great deal of responsibility and stress. This time I was in the much calmer role of editor, acting in a supporter role to Drowsy Drake Studio/Domalomn and alongside very familiar faces.

Another departure was the story's tone and genre. I am no stranger to writing mysteries, but dark comedies? I like dry, dark humour, but it's not every day I get to focus entirely on the comedy. Moreover, Dead Ringer puts an emphasis on dialogue and animations over narration, so the length of text dedicated to narration is not as big as what I'm used to. This allowed me to try and focus on polishing each dialogue line. Hopefully I did a good job!

Now, taking a step back from my role as team member to talk from the POV of someone who organized a game jam, it's not everyday a game jam project comes out so complete and well-polished. I really hope others can appreciate that, and all the work it took.

So, please, check out Dead Ringer and consider rating it!

Build 0.8.1 Is Out For Everyone!

Three months ago I made a promise, as the writer and creator of Minotaur Hotel, that no amount of difficulties would stop us from reaching the game's uncompromising conclusion. The road ahead will be long, but today I'm making good on the first step — and, as my people say, a promise made is a promise kept.

Today we're publishing the first part of Chapter 20. It will be split into 5 monthly updates, each one bigger than the last, so be aware that this is only the beginning. We have truly great things in store.

It would be obvious and trite to thank you for your support, so please allow me to take a step forward and show my gratitude for your faith. For your belief in us as developers, in our capacity to deliver, and in the story we are telling. Thank you for staying with us, and thank you for all the wonderful emotions you feel towards our story.

Chapter 20 was written with unwavering love and dedication. This is for you.

~~~

Hello, dear readers!

Today we're releasing Build 0.8.1 both here and on Itch.io. In comparison to the version we released earlier this month, it contains some bug fixes and a new ambiance track — no new content if you've already played the original Build 0.8.

All public versions of the game going forward will be published here and on Itch. Soon we'd like to have our own website to independently host our projects — an increasingly more necessary consideration given recent events involving Itch and payment processors.

Now, as much as I want to end the DevLog there, I have to cover a few pragmatic points.

First of all, the bad news: due to technical issues we cannot solve, save files from previous ​Android​ builds will not be compatible with this version. We plan on developing a chapter select feature to facilitate things for players, but sadly this will take some time and we do not have a release estimate for it yet. Right now, if you want to reach Chapter 20 ASAP make sure go to the Settings and select  the "Skip unseen text" option. Then you should be able to skip through the game in 15 minutes or so.

Second, Build 0.9 will come out around October 16th-19th, with the playtest version going out for Good Master patrons sometime next week. I'm happy to say that we are ahead of schedule and work on Build 0.10 started yesterday already.

Third, I'll be postponing the DevTalk to next weekend. I'm having some technical difficulties with my computer that affect my streaming and recording. I was not able to resolve it on time due to all the work going on this week, and I'd rather fix things up than having a terrible recording afterwards.

Fourth! The image we're posting today? It's one of the 14 CGs Alpha0 did for us. It's showing up on the last update of Chapter 20!

And fifth! I've been editing a game called Dead Ringer! It's coming out on October 1st. I'll post more about it when it's out.

That's it for now, have a good weekend!

VIP Story #2: Oscar's Oral Odyssey Part 1

That night, they pretended to be interested in jazz. Oscar tried to be inquisitive about it, but his mind was elsewhere. He was feeling light-headed. His gaze shifted to the overtly sexual cover art of the Tom of Finland collection when Robert's elbow bumped it.

They both looked at it. Oscar's gaze was locked.

Robert scooted his chair closer to the lad.

"Sorry, I forgot to store these away. Not the usual book you'd show to guests."

~~~

One day, years ago, I was struggling with writing. In that particular occasion I decided to write a story about Oscar giving Robert a blowjob. It did the trick and I was able to transition back to my next writing task. The next time I had a roadblock and needed to do this exercise, however, I decided it'd be more economical of my time to just keep going from where I left off instead of coming up with a new porn plot.

So, in a moment of short-sighted logic, I grabbed the next lowest hanging fruit and went with it. That is, I thought it'd be neat to add Themba to the mix. At that point I realized that "Oscar's Oral Odyssey" was a neat piece of assonance that also brought a reference to Greek poetry in a comedically low-brow way. So I kept repeating the pattern whenever necessary, adding more stupid episodes to this mockery of an odyssey. I more or less went through most of the game's cast while blindly picking the next lowest hanging fruit, with no real regard for consistent characterisation, thematic coherence or anything else.

The final result is a sequence of stories where everyone is just kind of horrible and unhinged, they all act on the basest sexual impulses, make each other worse in the process and it only goes downhill. At the end of it all I was at least able to show it to some buddies who liked it, but I think we all ended with a lingering impression that this was, perhaps, not such a good idea. I left it without an ending and with missing chapters in the middle, entirely unedited, and shelved it.

Recent events have, however, created perverse economic incentives pushing me to scrounge together whatever I can possibly package as a cohesive digital good, so that I may offer it as an incentive for potential patrons.

To at least hit the lowest bar of quality possible, I went back to fill the gaps I left and sprinkled more of the horny dust in some sections I had been lazy with.

In a way I find it infinitely entertaining that a commonplace creative roadblock years ago snowballed into this evil abomination, which I tried to contain but failed to. It now finds itself back to my readers to perpetuate the cycle of violence and keep us all stuck in samsara. I am afraid that in publishing this I may have trapped my soul in a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth, incapable of ridding myself of defilement, actively spreading this curse to others, and for that I am sorry.

Schedule for September & October

Hello!

I hope you're enjoying Build 0.8 as much as I've enjoyed this weekend so far. Getting the first part of Chapter 20 out and seeing the reactions has been very sweet, we've been waiting for this day for a long time!

But we have to start looking forward to the next steps, don't we? Let's take a look at the schedule I've prepared for the current and the next month.

September

September 20th: We're releasing the next erotic story, which will be available to all patrons of VIP Guest and Good Master tier. This one will be about Oscar and Robert, and is the first one in a sequence that gets pretty crazy.

September 27th: Build 0.8 will be released for the general public on Itch.io, and chances are we will host our first DevTalk on the following day.

October

Specific dates are yet to be determined with 100% certainty, so we're offering a range instead of a single day. Consider this a preliminary schedule.

October 5th or 6th: We'll release the third erotic story, which will be a sequel to the one immediately before it. This time we're adding Themba to the mix of Robert and Oscar.

October 10th to 12th: Assuming all goes well, Build 0.9's playtest will go out to our Good Master patrons.

October 16th to 19th: Build 0.9 will go out for all our patrons.

October 24th to 26th: We'll host our 2nd Ask the Minotaur Anything session, where we'll be taking questions from our patrons and answering them in-character.

Things are going to be really packed! There'll be something going on every week, more or less. If you're following our Patreon as a free member there's never been a better time to subscribe — even the lowest tier will give you access to Build 0.8, which we released yesterday, alongside our Discord server.

-Mino.

Build 0.8: Persephone

Three months ago I made a promise, as the writer and creator of Minotaur Hotel, that no amount of difficulties would stop us from reaching the game's uncompromising conclusion. The road ahead will be long, but today I'm making good on the first step — and, as my people say, a promise made is a promise kept.

Today we're publishing Build 0.8 to you, our dear patrons. It would be obvious and trite to thank you for your support, so please allow me to take a step forward and show my gratitude for your faith. For your belief in us as developers, in our capacity to deliver, and in the story we are telling. Thank you for staying with us, and thank you for all the wonderful emotions you feel towards our story.

Chapter 20 was written with unwavering love and dedication. This is for you.

Download Build 0.8 here.

Welcome back, dear reader, to our Minotaur Hotel.

Now, a consideration for Android players:

Due to technical difficulties, save files from previous Android builds will not carry over to Build 0.8. You'll have to start a new save file. We are terribly sorry about this. We've always tried to do all we could to preserve save files across releases, but this time there is not much we can do. We are looking into adding a "chapter select" feature that would allow readers to skip parts of the game but that is, technically, a non-trivial addition that will take time and planning.

The best advice I can give now is that, if you want to skip to the new content as quickly as possible, you should enable "Skip unseen text" in the Settings, then use the Skip feature to blast through. If you have any questions about choices and their effects on the narrative, feel free to ask us on the official Discord server.

— Mino.

Build 0.8 Playtesting

Hello, dear readers!

Build 0.8, containing the first four scenes of Chapter 20, is going forward at a great pace, in fact I'd say we are ahead of schedule. Aside from a background that's still a very early placeholder and having to update the credits, Build 0.8 is essentially done and since last week we've been doing playtesting with a small group.

We did encounter a few bugs, which we believe have been solved, but we decided to lean on the side of caution and double down on the playtesting — which brings us to tonight's news!

We've decided to do a round of playtesting among our Good Master patrons! We'll be distributing these builds in our Discord server, in a special channel exclusive to this tier — in fact, you can go there right now and download it!

At the moment we only have a Windows/Linux and Mac builds. We're having some issues with Android, which we will discuss at a later date.

That's it for now. I hope you have fun, and keep us informed about any issues!

Your Name In The Credits!

My dear readers, hello!

Today I'd like to talk about one of the benefits we are offering and how we'd like to handle it. As you might know, patrons from the Dear Guest tier and above are promised to have their name in the game's credits. At a glance that sounds simple — what's the difficulty in adding a list of names, right?

But I like doing things in the Minotaur Hotel way, and there are a few details to it that we, as developers, will have to manage with care.

For example, what should be done when patrons unsubscribe? Should their name be kept in the credits? My answer to that is that I believe their names should remain. The way I see it, contributing to the game's development should not be seen as a purely transactional and impartial choice — there is an emotion there, which has been cherished and nurtured in the game and should likewise be appreciated and handled with care outside of it. That is to say, even if our patrons decide to reduce or end their monthly contributions, what they did for the game should nonetheless be preserved and acknowledged.

That is just one of the things I've had to think about when it comes to this benefit. There were, and still are, other questions. Today's discussion is about what I consider the most pressing one given Build 0.8's approaching release date: just what name should we use for each patron?

Most of our patrons use perfectly fine pseudonyms for their Patreon usernames, but a few use what seems to be your real life names. I could also frame this as a more subtle privacy concern; do you want this specific pseudonym to be associated with Minotaur Hotel?

We are a little more than a week away from Build 0.8's release, juggling the game's development, and we are still getting acquainted with Patreon. Constructing a robust and thorough solution to this is a bit out of our capacity right now.

I ask you to please check your Patreon username and decide if it's adequate to display in the game's credits. If you have any reservations, please contact us via Patreon's messaging system.

I'll be conducting my own assessment and contacting patrons whose usernames could plausibly be their real life names, to be extra sure, but it'd be a lot easier and quicker if those who need this support could contact us and inform what name they want in the credits instead.

That's it for now, have a good day!

Build 0.8's Release Date

Build 0.8, containing the first act of Chapter 20, will be released on September 13th for patrons of all tiers.

Due to a variety of reasons, which we'll go at length below, we have decided to change the plan for Chapter 20's release. Instead of being published in one update we will release it in 5 updates, which are expected to go out monthly for our patrons.

Build 0.8 will come out on September 13th for our patrons, and on September 27th for the general public. It's about 16,000 words long and features 9 CGs by Captain Nikko and 5 backgrounds by GigaSaddle.

Build 0.9 is expected to come out in mid October for patrons. We are aiming for an October 18th release date but that is yet to be confirmed. It will be about 19,000 words long and features CGs by ToraGoru.

Builds 0.10, 0.11 and 0.12 are expected to come out on a regular monthly schedule, each one longer than the one preceding it. Build 0.12 alone, the climactic conclusion to Chapter 20, will be over 40,000 words long and will feature 14 CGs by Alpha0.

Aside from Build 0.8's public release on September 27th, the specifics of the following public releases are to be determined.

I am quite confident we will be able to handle this release schedule, though I do expect there to be at least two variables.

First, we must also account for the first release of the Visual Update, which is likely to happen sometime in the next five months. We cannot anticipate a release date yet, but when it's ready I want it to be its own update, so that we can give it all due attention — both from the developer side as well as letting readers focus on it.

The second factor is December, the holidays. It is difficult to predict to what extent our team will be available then, but even if they are available I'm of the opinion that time off during the holiday season is essential for a team's quality of life. My goal will be to have December's build prepared and ready to go ahead of time. As I look over the game's current progress I believe that is doable, but if it is not we will keep patrons posted.

Putting it all together, this should cover the next six to seven months in terms of releases.

Originally, it was my intention to release Chapter 20 in one single update. This was not out of ambition or vanity, but simply because its writing was done with the assumption that readers would transition from one scene to the next uninterrupted. If this had been done with the plan that it would be delivered across multiple updates I would have had some extra amount of care to make each "ending" wrap up a little more conclusively — leave a sweeter aftertaste, so to speak.

That said, as the circumstances of our development have changed and work has progressed, we've had to reevaluate our plans. Work on Chapter 20 has been going at a very good pace and most of the CGs are done, most of the coding is done, but there is still a lot to cover and to polish. The workload was not split evenly and some of our team mates are still chipping away at their own colossi — which so happens to be concentrated on the last fourth of Chapter 20, which is the most labor-intensive in a variety of ways.

Now, I would be remiss not to mention the workload specifically on the writing team's shoulders — mine, KangaRube's, Awoo's and Nemo's. We have avoided talking specifics about Chapter 20's length, because we know that is a metric that can scare some people off, but circumstances make it the right time to come clean: in its entirety Chapter 20 is about 120,000 words long, and chances are it will become even longer as we finalize edits to its last two scenes. If you'll forgive the joke, writing it was our Iliad and editing it has been our Odyssey. Exhaustion is a factor, and to put it bluntly I know that releasing the earlier parts of the chapter, and being able to see people's reactions, would be good for us in ways that words cannot describe. In the most pragmatic terms possible I can say it will helps us be productive, but in all honesty this would be healthy for the team.

And if that wasn't enough, there is also the situation of the game's expanded team, its budget and finances, which we've discussed in previous DevLogs. As things stand, providing benefits to our patrons translates directly into a greater budget to finance the game and give it high production values, which is in the best interest of all of our readers.

So, let me re-frame this: though most of Chapter 20 is essentially done, what work is left to do is concentrated on those who had the heaviest and most intense workloads to begin with, creating an undue pressure to deliver ASAP exactly on those who are the most tired. Meanwhile, there is a lot of content that is missing only the finishing touches, which is kept unpublished only because of our initial plan to release Chapter 20 in a single update.

We don't like changing plans, but the reasoning here was overwhelming and the decision to change the plan was unanimous.

Naturally, if the next updates are being published on Patreon, this raises questions about the public releases. For reasons which will become apparent with Build 0.8's release, I consider it important to have the gap between Patreon and public release to be short so that everyone is on the same boat rather quickly. This decision is done both as a creative choice and in the best interest of all our readership — again, the reasoning will become apparent when the game comes out.

After that point we might adopt something close to what most FVNs have, with an update being made available to the public a month after its Patreon release, or we might try to package multiple updates into a single one as to maintain a semblance of our original vision of Chapter 20 coming out as intact as possible.

Here I must take a minute to thank you, our patrons, for the support you have provided us. Developing Minotaur Hotel to its conclusion will be a challenge, one that demands dedication and professionalism, and that is made possible by your contributions.

I hope to see you soon, my dear reader, in our Minotaur Hotel.

—Mino.

VIP Story #1: Bent To His Will

Themba snorted. He slithered a hand into his pants and felt up the heft of his equipment.

"You can't do 'gentle' with an endowment like this. There's still time to turn back, are you in or not?"

~~~

When I'm struggling to write, at times I've written a few stories as "warmup exercises". The idea is starting with something quick and dirty, as low stakes as possible, so that I can overcome any anxieties and get in my writing groove.

These stories were never meant to be published — and that was an essential aspect of it. If I had any intention of making them public at any point I'd feel the pressure to make them good, which would then force me to put more effort and dedication into them, which would in turn defeat the entire purpose of the exercise.

What I can say as a positive is that this format did allow me to experiment with some character dynamics, and I was able to write some decent erotica. Though even that is with the caveat that everyone acts out-of-character at least to a minor extent, and that they are just too impulsive and inconsiderate.

Today's story puts Minotaur Hotel's two snakes together, Argos and Themba, and we get to see what happens when these two forces meet. Do be informed that this story hinges on certain events from Chapter 18 and 19, so if you haven't read them be warned that there are plenty of spoilers.

Have fun.

Visual Update Roadmap & Announcing Our Art Team

Hello, everyone! dilukha, the game’s new art director, here!

In our last DevLog,  we mentioned that the game would be undergoing a complete visual update. This means remaking many of the existing assets from scratch, including sprites, backgrounds and the user interface. This is, obviously, no easy task. For that reason, we put  together an action plan that would make this feasible and gathered a team of artists who fit the vision we have for the game. 

Now that the dust has settled, we want to share some of what we’ve already discussed and the choices we’ve made, to hopefully give everyone a clearer idea of what the game’s future will be like.

But what’s the Visual Update, actually?

We’ve already talked a bit about what the Visual Update will entail, but not what it will actually look like. As we step into this new moment of development, we took the opportunity to look back at the current state of the game with a more critical eye and reflect, with the benefit of hindsight, on what could be improved on. As a whole, the visuals of the game have many high points — the designs of the characters are extremely charming, their sprites are expressive and nuanced, the unique scrolling patterns for the text box are genius — but improvements can be made. Assets by different artists can clash stylistically, the clean, modern vectors of the UI don’t quite fit the theming of the story, and, as Minoanon mentioned in a previous DevLog, many of these assets were initially conceived as placeholders or include details that have changed as the story has grown. This Visual Update is not meant to be a radically different direction, but rather, a more focused one, that manages to tie all of these loose ends together.

One of our priorities regarding the upcoming art of the game is to create something that truly highlights its mythological and ancient theming. Minotaur Hotel is a story that wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and doing the same with the visuals would, no doubt, elevate it. For that reason, we’ll be moving onto a style that feels very traditional and hand-painted, full of texture and brush strokes, warm palettes reminiscent of the natural pigments you’d see in a worn down oil painting or a fresco on the walls of a temple — something that enhances the atmosphere and pays tribute to the kind of art that inspired this setting. Another aspect that will be emphasized will be the contrast between the ordinary and the fantastical (or as Minoanon once put it, the “magic of the mundane”). The guests the Master meets in the hotel may be fantastic creatures, but they’re still people. Following that line of thinking, the style of the game will be slightly more grounded, more physical: you should be able to imagine them sitting next to you, or how their fur would feel when you run your hands along it. As a point of reference, the promo art that we included in the previous DevLog was meant to be a small taste of what Minotaur Hotel could look like going forward, so you’d do well to keep it in mind (and speaking personally, I’m overjoyed at how well it has been received so far!)

In between all these changes, of course, we’re aiming to maintain familiarity. You won’t end up running into a version of Minotaur Hotel that feels unrecognizable. Readers have grown attached to these characters across the years (which I deeply understand — I started off as a fan myself), and we want you to be able to look at them the same way you’ve always had. 

In general, the goal of the Visual Update is simple: preserve the essence of the story we know and love, while improving where we can. We not only hope, but we’re confident that we can achieve this.

Now, we should move onto how we’re going to achieve this…

The Roadmap

The Visual Update is going to be divided into five phases, each including a certain amount of  remade sprites, CGs and backgrounds. They will also be fully independent from the main story updates and managed entirely by me, so rest assured: they’re not going to interfere with the progress of the game and the writing team will be able to keep going along at their own pace.

Our goal is for each phase to take no more than four months. If everything goes our way, it should take us around a year and a half to finish the Visual Update. However, we’ve arranged them in such a way that most of the high priority assets will be finalized between the second and the third phase, so by the time we get there, it should feel mostly complete (Of course, the gradual nature of this process means that new assets will have to coexist with old ones for some time, so please find it in your hearts to forgive the awkwardness of this period).

Here’s some (not all!) of the stuff that Hotel Basics 1 will include:

• An upgraded resolution of 1920p x 1080p.

• A redesigned user interface.

• Updated sprites for Luke, Kota, Argos, Jean and various NPCs.

• New backgrounds for the Bedrock and the Valley.

• Updated CGs for Asterion’s introduction and his lyre concert.

Hotel Basics 1 is meant to cover roughly the first act of the story, so long time fans will definitely want to revisit it with new visuals, and it’ll be a great time for new readers to hop in as well. It’s scheduled to be released by the end of this year if everything goes smoothly, and we’ll be sharing some progress updates in between, so look forward to it!

Something important I must clarify is that Asterion’s sprites will not be included in the first phase, for various reasons. His sprite is by far the most complex of the cast. For starters; he has three separate sprite sets, all of which have many different outfits, two of which have multiple fur colors and one that has the largest amount of unique poses and expressions in the entire game. It’d be unwise to begin by diving into the most complicated character head first — especially when he’s so important, and when so much of the story hinges on the player character's relationship with him. We want to take our time and gather experience with other sprites before taking him on, so we can make him the best he can be. His sprite’s update will likely be spread out between various phases as well, both due to the sheer magnitude of work it entails, and so we can get some feedback from the readers before committing to a specific vision.

Another necessary clarification is that my role as the new AD was made official after the work on Chapter 20’s CGs started being worked on, so you’re not really going to see my hand in them. The artists chosen to help with that have all done an amazing job, though, so look forward to them regardless!

Now, you might think that the things we outlined as part of the first phase of the Visual Update are still a lot, and that would be true — were it not for all the people behind it. Without further ado, please give a warm welcome to…

Our new Art Team!

Rest assured, we thought very carefully about which artists to include in our lineup, taking into account all the considerations we’ve already mentioned. We’re certain that the artists that now make up our art team are talented, capable and have the skills necessary to carry us to the finish line.

First, let’s talk about sprites. It shouldn’t be necessary to underline how important they are: they’re the visualization of the characters that readers will be in contact with the most during their playthroughs, and they must really evoke their personality and emotions. It was essential to keep them very consistent as, ideally, different sprites shouldn’t clash with each other. For that reason, I wanted to keep the spriting team small, and focused on seeking out artists who had a great range both anatomy and species-wise (including humans!) and who had the rendering skills this direction demands. 

Rayan is one of the artists who will be focusing mainly on this area. The decision to have him be part of the team was pretty much unanimous — this fanart of Themba he did not too long ago should be the only proof anyone needs to know how well his style fits this project. His approach to bodies, rendering and the expressiveness of his characters are just the exact kind of skills we were looking for, so we’re very happy to have him on the team!

Lappan will also be joining our spriting team. His mastery over both anatomy and color and his painterly style made him an excellent candidate for the job. I especially enjoy his reptilian and monster-like characters, of which there are many in the Minotaur Hotel cast — and without spoiling anything, he’s been doing very well with them so far, so we hope you’re just as excited as us to see what he can pull off.

A couple sprites will be handled by different artists, but in large, Rayan, Lappan and I will be in charge of them, and a lot of work is being put into staying in sync with each other to keep them looking cohesive. This is a bit different for our CG artists, though; CGs are special illustrations meant for specific story moments, so they’re very vibe-dependent. While consistency is still crucial, it’s not necessary to be as strict with it as it is with sprites, so CG artists have a bit more leeway to adjust their style based on the specifics of the scene.

Phwog is one of the artists who was chosen for his unique and evocative style! For those unfamiliar, here are some CGs he has done for A Role to Play and for his own VN Depiction of Pleasure. He’s very experienced both with illustration and storytelling, so there are lots of story moments that will undoubtedly be elevated by his work.

Many of you also noticed that ToraGoru was mentioned in our last DevLog as one of the artists that helped with the art for Chapter 20, so you’ll be happy to hear the confirmation that he’s part of the Visual Update team as well! He might just be Asterion’s biggest fan, and the team has always greatly enjoyed his art, so we’re very glad he joined our lineup.

Another of the artists from Chapter 20 that will also be part of the permanent art team is Jax, who not only is a fantastic digital painter on his own, but is also a fan and a longtime friend of ours. He’ll also be focusing mostly on CGs, where his skill with brushwork and environments can shine, and his understanding of the story and characters has proved a great asset to his art so far.

Some of the CGs will be handled by Kinutao, who you may be familiar with, as his art was heavily featured in L’automne. He has a spectacular body of work, not only technically skilled, but suggestive and moody — which is very necessary to preserve the expressive nature of the visuals. He will be handling many of the game’s new backgrounds as well!

And on the topic of backgrounds, Faun will be our main in-house background artist. As soon as we saw their art, their loose and painterly style felt like a perfect fit for the fantastic environments of Minotaur Hotel. Their art will pop up a lot in places that previously were simply royalty-free photos, and it’ll help establish an unique identity for these locations.

Additionally, both Eddio and GigaSaddle, both of whom most of you must already be familiar with (for Kota’s redesign and many of the game’s backgrounds respectively) will still be there for us to provide some art support. BorkThunder, whose backgrounds you may have also seen in many other furry visual novels before (like this one he did for UNDER | HEAVEN), will be helping us during the first phase with some select backgrounds and CGs as well.

We’re very lucky we managed to have gathered such an amazing lineup, and we expect all of you to enjoy what they have in store for the game as much as we have.

I also want to end this DevLog by thanking all of the kind readers that have chosen to help us by joining our Patreon. This Visual Update obviously doesn’t just require a lot of effort on our part, but funds to compensate these artists appropriately. We’re very thankful to everyone that has chipped in so far — everything we’ve managed to raise will be invaluable in terms of keeping the project running smoothly. All of our Patreon members get access to the official Discord server where we’ll share sneak peeks of what’s in the works, do occasional events like AMAs and streams and higher tiers will gain access to unpublished stories and cut content, so if that’s something that interests you, we’d really appreciate the support.

We hope you’re excited for what the art team has in the oven!

— dilukha