Hello!

First of all, sorry for the silence during the last month or so.  Originally we meant to release the next build (the Hinterlands Expansion) a while ago but a series of real life things came up. Not bad things, mind you. Quite the contrary, they were very good things. I went on vacations abroad for the first time in years and nanoff was moving to a new place. We all needed some time to focus on the good things happening.

Instead of promising news or a release date "soon", we just sat down as much as time allowed and tried to get work done. Today, however, is September 7th, marking the third anniversary of Minotaur Hotel 0.1's release back in 2019. We just couldn't let that slide. Even if we are not quite ready to release new stuff, a DevLog was very justified and necessary.

Without further ado, let's get to it.

Build 0.6.2

Build 0.6.2 introduces what we've been calling the "Hinterlands Expansion".  As we discussed in the Post-Mortem, we actually had to cut some interesting locations to get it out quicker, but seeing how much people liked it we wrote this expansion.

Very curiously, September 7th is both the anniversary of Minotaur Hotel's release and Brazil's Independence Day, which is a very relevant factor the Hinterlands update as it will provide you with the unforgettable opportunity to enjoy a day out with Storm, watching a shitty Independence Day parade.

All the writing is done, the text was edited, it's been coded into the game. However, since the release got delayed already, nanoff went ahead and started work on improving P's and Storm's sprites. That's the last thing missing plus some other background assets, and while he's working on it we will be testing the new content. Here's a look at it, though!

I'm not giving a release date here because I don't think it's good to create a time pressure to get it done, but you can rest assured it should come out very soon.

Now, let's talk about another thing...

Chapters 19 & 20

The content of Build 0.6.2 has been written for a while now, but because of the aforementioned circumstances things got delayed. However we didn't stop development for the game! While nanoff was going through the moving process we were writing content for the next update, which will add CHAPTERS 19 AND 20 OF THE MAIN STORY.

These two chapters are a pivotal moment in the game. As for Chapter 18 the MC and Asterion have reached a very important moment in their relationship and now we get to see that develop. These two chapters also transition the game into what amounts to the third and final act.

To be clearer, you can think of the "first act" as being everything from the start of the game all the way to Asterion's concert during Chapter 12, which is about the MC and Asterion forming a bond of trust. The second act, then, starts with Chapter 13 and goes to Chapter 18, being about the evolution of that partnership into a more intimate and romantic  bond.

The third act, as you may guess, is about the fruition of this relationship. The good stuff. The pay off. We were waiting for it just as much, if not more, than you guys were.

There's still a lot to do with those two chapters, but they are both past the halfway point in production terms. Again, not committing to a release date, but you can rest assured that things are moving forward.

150k Downloads

Silly me, I forgot to mention this when we published the DevLog, so consider this an edit done a few hours after.

A while ago Minotaur Hotel hit 150k downloads, just a few months after we hit 100k! It's really motivating seeing just how many people have played the game, and I imagine you guys might find this information cool as well.

More News & Shameless Shilling

There have been times when we really wanted to shill give a spotlight to our friends' projects, or just had a smaller piece of news that didn't justify a whole DevLog to itself. We're packing all of those here.

Yes, a good chunk of this section will be shameless shilling. Sue me.

Minotaur Hotel Archive

By popular demand, we compiled all the previous builds of Minotaur Hotel and made them available again. This shouldn't be of interest to most readers but some people are curious about the earlier versions of the game, which we already kept archived anyway. As of today you can access them on the Minotaur Hotel Archive page.

Harvest Lab

Our friend, Roddo, developer of Nerus, published a fan novel of Minotaur Hotel ago. It's called Harvest Lab. We had talked about it before but only before it was available, so I think it's worth it bringing it up here.

Harvest Lab is a short romance novel based on Minotaur Hotel. Hundreds of years in the future, the hotel has gained many permanent residents; among them are the black hydras, gigantic lizards that are unable to leave the realm.
Juan Manuel, the middle head of Juan the black hydra, never pays his coworker Tony much attention. It is peculiar that a human moved to that section of the hotel and that he always drinks alone at the Lighthouse after work, but Manuel is too busy to sweat those little details. But after his brothers, Juan Claudio and Juan Iván, encourage him to befriend Tony, it becomes apparent the eccentric guest is hiding something. At the same time, Juan's feelings start developing into a much deeper craving.
Harvest Lab has adult content including (but not limited to) teratophilia, domination, extremely rough sex, pretty much every orifice being penetrated at some point, etc. You've been warned.

You can download Harvest Lab here.

Neighbors

Some of you may remember Nardo, as one of the first people to ever do fan art of Minotaur Hotel and as the Eldritch being responsible for the Mino Hotel "funko pops"/figurines. Recently he's started publishing a comic called Neighbors. Consider this a friendly threat to follow him on Twitter, support him on Patreon and do all efforts available to stop this madman from unleashing more funko pops onto our world.

You can read the comic here.

Anamnesis

Likewise, you may know Danero as one of the most prolific and brainrotted people making Minotaur Hotel fan art. He's been working on a visual novel for a while called Anamnesis about an adorable older ram called Thatcher. He makes very cute faces sometimes and I really liked the writing. Here's the summary:

Anamnesis is an epic fantasy furry visual novel. It follows Thatcher, a simple farming ram in the mountains above Plataea. An heirloom left behind by his long-dead wife, Abigail, becomes his last lifeline when his livelihood is unjustly taken from him. But others want this chunk of unidentifiable metal, and so learning anything about it -- what it is, how to repair it, and why anyone else would want it so badly -- becomes crucial to his survival.
Over his life, he's had many jobs: soldier and butcher, farmer and husband. These days, he's even become a village elder. Like most of us, his choices are informed by his past experiences, accumulated over a long career. You'll influence how he remembers those events, which parts are emphasized and which are forgotten, and that in turn will impact how he reacts in the future.

You can download Anamnesis here!