Dev Diary #2 (Patreon)

Hello everyone! Thanks for all of the comments in Dev Diary #1. I hope you enjoyed the holiday season. I'm beginning to get back into planning and development for v0.17 so I have some more to share with you all.

Firstly I wanted to clarify some concepts I brought up in the last Dev Diary.

Making Sex Optional:

It seems many were confused by my wording when I said making all sex actions optional could lead to a SFW "path". This doesn't mean any story would need to be rewritten. Anal is already completely optional, so it is my goal to give that option to every other sex encounter.

The below four concepts are all tied together in many ways.

Interactive Mobile Phone:

Here are more of my plans for this concept:

• The pause menu could be replaced with a mobile phone. Each option in the pause menu can be an app.
• You can now be informed when some events are ready through text, such as Kate asking you to go somewhere, and you can decide to start the event now or later.
• The phone can be used in immersive ways and wouldn't simply be a different way to chat.
• Interactive phones can also play a role in the story. Adds opportunities for facetiming, nudes, and cams on-the-go.

And more, but I don't want to bore everyone with details that aren't set in stone yet.

Objectives:

Objectives are sort of like quests except you only have one at a time and it is meant to guide you so you never get lost or confused, and encourage the player to advance all main characters.

An example of Objective #1 would be:
[X] Lin's level to 5
[X] Gain $100
[X] Fully Explore the hotel
[X] Travel to Caliber City

An example of Objective #2 would be:
[X] Get Kali's level to 10
[X] Gain $500
[X] Visit The Slums

Other examples of Objects could be:
[X] Build the Bar
[X] Build the Sanctuary
[X] Build the Second Floor
[X] Complete a Holiday Event
[X] Complete a Birthday Event

But Harem Hotel is fairly easy as it is, guiding you through the game isn't the main reason I want to include this. This ties into the next two concepts on my list...

Weekly Events:

• Every week, once all objectives for the prior week have been checked off, a "Weekly Event" can occur.
• For the first four weeks, each event will focus on one of the first four main characters.
• Each weekly event will involve thoughts on the events each main character has just experienced, and will be an opportunity to share their experiences and bond with the other main characters.
• This dialogue can be highly variable to include things you did or did not do.
• For the fifth week onward, group weekly events will occur. This can involve things like group vacations, group events, group dates, group sex, etc. Story outside of the main story, low stakes.
• A new room could be built in the hotel, a Lounge Room, where many of these events would start, and be a good place to host games and orgies. This would also necessitate a new non-residential floor.

The Calendar:

I think this mechanic has a lot of potential to be very fun and I've been spending last week thinking on this more.

The Calendar system is planned to be 7 days a week, 28 days per month 336 days per year. This keeps things simple mechanically.

• Weekly Events would be available on the calendar. The goal would be to start these events every Saturday or something, but in case you miss that deadline, you won't have to wait until next Saturday.
• Holidays have a lot of potential for fun I think. My goal is to have at least one holiday per month, twelve per year at the minimum. This goal doesn't include holidays like Midlari or the High Elf moon holiday, but they are holidays.
• Birthdays would also be visible on the Calendar app. Birthday events could be fun events where there is a strong romantic element including some impactful choices. Such as needing to know a main character to give them a present they would like. Do everything right and maybe you could get a unique sex scene!
• A calendar could provide other useful information such as which characters are currently busy, and why, all in one app.

Let me know what you think about these linked concepts.

To be clear this isn't a goal for v0.17, these are just thoughts I'm writing in a public diary. The Development Announcement post will state my plans for for v0.17 and mark the beginning of development.