It's with great joy that we announce that writing for Chapter 20 of Minotaur Hotel is done.

This chapter has grown quite a lot from its original plan. I don't want to go in details here, lest I spoil the surprise, but there are many reasons why this chapter had to be bigger and pack more content than our usual. The least spoiler-ish explanation I can give is that it was necessary to ensure a smooth development of the game going forward — which is a very vague thing to say now, but will eventually make sense.

The final result is something we're immensely proud of in all regards — the character writing, the mythology, the poetry, the eroticism, the fun and lighthearted segments. There is an incredible amount of variation in this chapter, which we tackled to acknowledge players' choices earlier in the game and to give every single player an experience that can cater to their tastes in one way or another, as much as it is compatible with the story. The word count for this build alone has gone beyond 100,000 — I will not specify more than that, though I want to state that the number of variations we wrote means that no single playthrough will see all the text.

I must give special thanks to all who sent their input in the many surveys we did over the years — your comments were invaluable — and to our incredible readers who, so often, wrote impressively insightful criticisms on the forum and in their reviews.

Writing the final stretch of this chapter has been the most intensive writing challenge of my life. For the last 4 months, Kangarube and I have worked 4 to 6 nights per week, usually putting no less than 3 hours of writing time every night. On the slower weeks we did 4 days of writing and 1 day of outlining and brainstorming, while on the more intense weeks we brought the entire writing team together for all hands on deck collaborative writing sessions, some of which lasted 6 hours or more. More often than not, our sessions ended no earlier than 1AM. It has been a lot of work; dedicated work, intense work, engineering scenes and variations together, extensive research, meetings to solidify ideas — a challenging but gratifying routine of artistic creation.

During those 4 months, my focus was exclusively on Minotaur Hotel save for precisely two short periods — a week in late October in which I dedicated myself to Devil's Gambit, and the holiday period between December 24th and January 7th, in which I worked on Sex Drive and again on Devil's Gambit. On the topic of Sex Drive, the writing and editing for the next build is completely done and Eddio is working intensely on the assets we need, and we should have news soon. To those who were concerned that those projects would be a distraction from Minotaur Hotel, I assure you that is not the case, as you will soon see when Chapter 20 comes out.

A little more than half of Chapter 20 is completely written and edited, 100% done and ready to be coded. Then we have a quarter that is edited, with a few pending suggestions that I'm approving now. The final quarter, which includes the scenes with particularly excessive amount of variations, still has a few gaps to be filled during the editing process — but it's just that, gaps.

The immediate next step is to take our writing and put it in the game — a gargantuan task considering the sheer volume of text on the table. In order to quicken this process we're bringing in Wattson, a seasoned programmer who contributes to a number of on-going VNs and has provided code for us along the years (most notably the drag-and-drop interface on the management screen). He'll be porting the writing to ren'py while the team edits the rest of the text. We will also have background by GigaSaddle, a dear friend who's already contributed with assets, Themba's design many of the pin-ups we commissioned. 

Still, we cannot provide an estimate of when the next build will be ready for release. There is a lot of work ahead, and I do not want to put undue pressure on the rest of the team. But I assure you that we are sparing no expenses and putting in our all to deliver the next build as soon as possible.

For our readers who became anxious or concerned about our extended silence, I want to say that I did not want to post a DevLog until we had concrete news about the game's development. I also want to say that I understand that your emotions come from a place of deep connection and care towards us and Minotaur Hotel. While we still do not have a release date, I hope that the unequivocally positive news about the project can assuage your concerns.

My intention is to bring the next build's release date along with our next DevLog. I hope to see you then, and I hope what we have in store will be an unforgettable experience. Thank you for your patience.

Minoanon.