BUILD 0.4.1 IS OUT

Howdy! We're putting up version 0.4.1 of Minotaur Hotel. Now, first of all, it does not add new content, so if you are up to date with the game you don't have to download it.

That said, it adds 10 new songs, contains bug fixes and, most importantly, has a full overhaul of the game's code. This means is that old save files are not compatible with version 0.4.1, so you'll have to start from scratch.

If you are just tuning in for the first time then just pick up 0.4.1 and have a good time! But if you are a returning player, what I recommend is that some time over the next months you download 0.4.1, make a fresh save and play it to the end. This way, when we release 0.5 you can jump right in without having to replay the game in a hurry.

CHANGELOG

• Complete overhaul of the backend code.
• Reorganised files.
• Character sprites converted to webp to take up less space.
• Bug fixes:
  • The maximum score/ranking for the build shown in-game was inaccurate.
• One of the memento files had alternate text depending on the player's background and would break when viewed from the title screen.
• Added 10 new songs from iLicenseMusic to take the place of the last few public domain/Creative Commons songs we still had in the game. Don't worry though, the Seikilos Epitaph remains in the game!
  • Full breakdown of songs: 3 for Luke, 3 for Argos, 1 for Kota, 1 for cobalts (shared with Greta), 1 noise track for the cold room scene, 1 for upcoming content (in the game's files but inaccessible in-game.)
• As outlined here, we learned that Creative Commons licenses are invalid in video games (which is what motivated us to switch to licensed tracks in the first place), so to resolve this weird copyright situation we bit the bullet and transitioned Minotaur Hotel to the usual "All rights reserved" regimen. The About page and main screen were updated to match the change.

BACKEND CLEANUP

Nanoff here. As we said in an earlier devlog, we're working hard on 0.5 and part of the work being done is a major cleanup of Minotaur Hotel's backend to add new features to the game. I started working on Minotaur Hotel as a less experienced programmer who had never touched RenPy before, so I made some bad decisions when setting up Minotaur Hotel's code. I kept building on top of those bad decisions in order to not ask people to wipe their saves — if you've ever checked out the old code you might know what I'm talking about.

So... I spent the last two weeks rewriting the code from scratch, and then adapting it to the screens and scripts we already have done. This will make Minotaur Hotel easier to develop for in the future and less prone to bugs. There's an important trade-off though: loading a save previous to 0.4.1 will most likely crash the game. Telling people to start over is something we tried to avoid in the past (as people who play other visual novels we know how much of a pain in the ass it is) but in this case, I'm afraid it is unavoidable.

We're still leaving vanilla 0.4 available for download if you want to catch up on Minotaur Hotel but don't want to sit through the opening again (although you can skip through most of it so catching up takes less than two minutes). If you're a first time player or feel like replaying the game to see what you missed making other choices, then we recommend you go with 0.4.1.